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CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION 
IN  THE  SOUTH 


CHRISTIAN 

RECONSTRUCTION     IN 

THE    SOUTH 


BY 


H.  PAUL   DOUGLASS 


BOSTON 
THE    PILGRIM    PRESS 

NEW   YORK  CHICAGO 


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O^^ 


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Copyright,  1909 
By  H.  p.  Douglass 


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THE   UNIVERSITY    PRESS,    CAMBRIDGE,   U.S.A. 


To 
THE  MEMORY  OF  HENRY  LEE 

one  of  "  the  unfit " 
of  whom  the  world  was  not  worthy 


PREFACE 

THE  writing  of  this  book  was  undertaken  at  the  re- 
quest of  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  American 
Missionary  Association  and  primarily  with  its  con- 
stituency in  mind.  From  the  work  of  that  organization, 
therefore,  with  which  the  author  is  personally  familiar,  the 
illustrative  matter  has  largely  been  drawn,  especially  in 
those  chapters  which  describe  missionary  operations  con- 
cretely. I  have  tried  to  interpret  that  work  in  its  repre- 
sentative character  and  in  relation  to  that  of  the  whole 
group  of  agencies  making  for  the  complete  Americaniza- 
tion of  the  South.  Further  and  particularly  the  attempt 
has  been  to  provide  a  sociological  perspective  and  back- 
ground for  the  problems  presented  by  the  undeveloped 
peoples  of  the  South.  The  approach  has  been  through  a 
particular  group  of  interests,  the  purpose  to  throw  light 
on  the  larger  issue  involved. 

The  author  misses  in  his  book  that  deliberately  lauda- 
tory mood  which,  by  the  recent  usage  of  high  authority, 
seems  to  be  the  proper  way  for  the  Northerner  to  discuss 
the  South.  Beginning  with  the  Ogden  parties,  a  succes- 
sion of  distinguished  Yankees  have  journeyed  thither  on 
all  manner  of  speech-making  occasions.  There  is  so  much 
compelling  praise  in  that  marvelously  awakening  section 
that  these  gentlemen  have  had  little  difficulty  in  filling  the 
time  allotted  by  program  maker  and  interviewer  with 
merited  congratulations.  The  echoes  of  their  speeches  as 
reported  back  home  have  largely  given  tone  to  latter-day 
Northern  thought  on  Southern  problems.  But  one  cannot 
easily  be  at  the  same  time  both  guest  and  philosopher. 

n 


PREFACE 


Socrates,  in  Plato's  "  Banquet,"  when  his  turn  comes  to 
speak,  assumes  ironically  the  vein  of  his  companions. 
When  they  protest  that  he  is  manifestly  insincere  he  re- 
joins that  the  occasion  demands  politeness  rather  than 
truth.  The  Northern  orators  who  have  had  popular  hear- 
ing have  spoken  as  guests  and  have  played  up  to  the 
occasion.  Consequently  nearly  all  the  plain  and  hard- 
hitting telling  of  truth  about  the  South  is  coming  from 
Southerners. 

There  is  a  striking  contrast  between  some  of  their  ut- 
terances and  those  which  the  North  has  been  hearing  from 
its  own  authorities.  The  professor  of  English,  for  exam- 
ple, in  a  Southern  university  made  an  original  and  highly 
successful  attempt  to  get  interest  into  his  students'  literary 
themes :  he  assigned  the  race  problem  as  a  topic.  The 
resulting  product  did  not  lack  in  interest.  Under  the  cap- 
tion "  The  Young  Southerner  and  the  Negro  "  ^  the  pro- 
fessor summarizes  his  experiment  as  follows :  — 

These,  then,  are  the  views  of  forty-eight  young  men 
from  seven  states  of  the  South.  They  unanimously 
opposed  any  idea  of  social  equality ;  thirty-nine  were 
opposed  to  higher  education  of  the  African ;  twenty- 
five  favored  only  reading,  writing,  and  a  trade ;  thirty 
believed  that  he  should  possess  no  political  rights ; 
nine  were  without  faith  in  his  religion ;  eleven  believed 
him  to  have  been  a  better  man  in  slavery  days ;  thirty- 
one  declared  that  he  must  always  be  a  common  ser- 
vant to  the  white  man;  twenty-five  thought  that  he 
possessed  no  ability  in  self-government ;  seventeen 
were  in  favor  of  retaining  him  in  the  South;  seven 
favored  giving  him  a  separate  territory ;  three  fa- 
vored "  black  cities  " ;    nine  believed  that  his  dissipa- 

'  South  Atlantic  Quarterly,  vol.  viii,  pp.  117  ff. 


PREFACE 

tion  and  uncleanliness  would  solve  the  problem  by 
exterminating  him;  twelve  were  content  to  leave  the 
whole  question  to  Providence ;  seventeen  declared  that 
fornication  and  the  resulting  amalgamation  of  the 
races  were  endangering  the  white  blood  of  the  South ; 
ten  were  opposed  to  lynching;  and  fourteen  consid- 
ered a  race  war  highly  probable.  Remember,  once 
more,  that  these  writers  are  not  a  crowd  of  ruffians 
from  the  lower  strata  of  Southern  life,  but  represen- 
tatives of  refined  families,  and  of  a  student  body, 
ninety-six  per  cent  of  whom  are  confessing  Chris- 
tions  and  forty  per  cent  candidates  for  the  ministry. 
Is  such  a  study  of  existing  tendencies  just  ground 
for  optimism?  .  .  .  Are  not  the  indications  plain 
that  the  black  man  is  to  be  restrained,  hampered, 
browbeaten,  discouraged  within  the  next  quarter  of 
a  century  as  never  before  in  all  the  bitter  years  of 
his  existence  on  this  continent? 

In  a  similar  vein  of  courageous  candor  the  Rev.  Quincy 
Ewing,  a  Southerner  of  Southerners,  has  recently  diag- 
nosed the  spirit  of  his  section.^  The  race  problem,  he  says, 
is  not  the  negro  as  an  objective  burden  to  civilization.  It 
is  not  his  economic  inefficiency,  for  the  South  wants  him 
as  a  laborer;  nor  his  excessive  criminality,  for  he  is  not 
more  criminal  than  whites  of  corresponding  social  status ; 
nor  his  ignorance,  for  according  to  Governor  Vardaman, 
at  least,  it  is  the  difficult,  educated  negro,  not  the  docile, 
Ignorant  one  who  is  the  burden.  Neither  has  the  South- 
erner any  personal  aversion  to  the  negro  race.  On  the 
other  hand,  Mr.  Ewing  asserts,  the  race  problem  is  dis- 
tinctly subjective.  It  originates  in  the  white  man's  mind, 
in  his  convictions  that  the  negro  is  "  not  human  in  the 
sense  that  he  is  human,  not  entitled  to  the  exercise  of  human 

'  Atlantic  Monthly, "  The  Heart  of  the  Race  Problem,"  vol.  ciii,  pp.  389  ff . 

fTiil 


PREFACE 


rights  in  the  sense  that  he  is  entitled  to  the  exercise  of 
them."  It  is  not  what  the  negro  now  is  or  is  not,  but 
"  how  to  keep  him  what  he  is  in  relation  to  the  white  man, 
how  to  prevent  his  achieving  or  becoming  what  would  jus- 
tify the  belief  on  his  part  or  on  the  part  of  other  people 
that  he  and  the  white  man  stand  on  common  human 
ground."  In  Southern  usage,  then,  "  bad  nigger  "  means 
not  the  criminal  negro,  but  the  one  who  shows  signs  of 
achievement  and  thus  gets  out  of  focus  with  the  traditional 
view.  "  The  problem  arises  only  when  people  of  one  race 
are  minded  to  adopt  and  act  upon  some  policy  more  or 
less  oppressive  and  repressive  in  dealing  with  peoples  of 
another  race.  It  is  the  existence  of  such  a  policy,  become 
traditional  and  supported  by  immovable  conviction,  which 
constitutes  the  race  problem  of  the  Southern  states." 

What  shall  we  say  to  these  things?  In  answering  cer- 
tain comments  of  Northern  papers  on  the  street  duel  in 
which  Senator  Carmack  was  killed,  the  Richmond  Times- 
Dispatch  characterized  such  affairs  as  typical  of  the  South 
but  not  characteristic.  It  further  explains  the  distinction 
to  mean  that,  while  there  are  undoubtedly  a  considerable 
body  of  Southerners  who  approve  and  practise  the  street 
duel,  it  is  not  a  trait  of  those  who  are  profoundly  repre- 
sentative of  the  life  of  their  section.  Now  here  are  the 
attitudes  of  the  professor's  forty-eight  young  Southerners, 
and  over  against  them  the  wholly  opposing  attitude  of 
the  able  and  courageous  Review  which  publishes  the  study. 
Using  the  Times-Dispatches  distinction,  they  are  ahke 
typical  of  the  South;    but  which  is  characteristic.'' 

One  prefers  to  answer  that  the  issue  is  still  in  doubt. 
The  South  is  not  homogeneous,  hence  cannot  have  a  single 
sectional  character.  Since  the  war  it  has  not  reached 
stable  equilibrium.     It  is  in  intellectual  and  moral  transi- 


[  viii 


PREFACE 


tion.  Its  sifting  is  under  way.  The  battle  is  on  but  the 
end  is  not  yet.  God  defend  the  right!  But  if  forced  to 
generahze  on  the  basis  of  present  facts,  one  would  have  to 
confess  that  the  tendencies  represented  by  the  young  South- 
erners have  political  and  social  power  beyond  that  of  the 
South  Atlantic  Quarterly  and  its  kind.  The  forty-eight 
are  with  the  maj  ority ;  the  Trinity  College  group  are  in 
the  minority.  The  repressive  policies  which  Mr.  Ewing 
expounds  are  characteristic,  his  personal  attitude  is  ex- 
ceptional. In  view  of  these  facts  the  author  of  this  book 
sorrowfully  finds  his  olive  branch  less  wide-spreading  than 
those  of  ex-President  Eliot  and  President  Taft  seem  to  be. 

The  book  is  dedicated  to  the  memory  of  a  negro  teacher 
of  manual  training  who  died  of  tuberculosis  at  the  age  of 
thirty.  The  individual  is  typical  of  his  race  and  his  race 
of  humanity.  All  stocks  of  men  are  always  being  sifted 
by  one  or  another  of  the  great  secular  processes.  In  con- 
templating the  destiny  of  others,  men  stand  in  the  shadow 
of  their  own  and  are  led  to  the  ultimate  question.  What 
significance  in  the  economy  of  existence  have  those  who 
go  to  the  rubbish  heap  of  temporal  history.''  Are  the 
verdicts  of  sociology  as  to  human  values  necessarily  the 
verdict  of  the  Last  Judgment.? 

No  soul  which  hopes  for  itself  can  call  that  august  ver- 
dict good  unless  the  universe,  somehow  and  somewhere, 
saves  and  utilizes  much  which  fails  of  measurable  human 
fruition.  For  the  "  unfit  "  (speaking  as  the  evolutionist 
does)  are  infinitely  outnumbered  and  outweighed  by  our 
multitudes  of  bankrupt  aspirations,  those  subtle  waifs  of 
the  inner  life,  dearer  to  the  heart  than  the  acknowledged 
sons  of  the  home.  Their  fate  —  the  fate  of  the  "  unfit  " 
portions  of  ordinarily  "  fit  "  experience  —  constitutes  a 
graver  philosophical  problem  than  the  mere  temporal  fall- 

fk] 


PREFACE 

ing  out  of  nations  or  races.     If  existence  fails  here  it  fails 

altogether. 

"  What  hand  and  brain  went  ever  paired  ? 
What  heart  alike  conceived  and  dared  ? 
What  act  proved  all  its  thought  had  been? 
What  wUl  but  felt  the  fleshly  screen?" 

If  existence  be  good  these  discrepancies  in  the  most  for- 
tunate experience  must  somehow  find  healing  in  a  reuniting 
of  the  scattered  elements  of  life.  Whatever  earth  or  seas 
hold  these  dead  must  give  them  up. 

Such  is  the  salvation  of  the  most  fortunate,  and  it  carries 
with  it  a  possible  salvation  for  the  least  fortunate.  Where 
the  most  fortunate  find  their  indispensable  completion,  the 
least  fortunate  may  repair  a  whole  life-failure.  Death 
logically  is  no  more  unconquerable  than  unhappiness. 

"  All  that  I  hoped  to  be  and  was  not  comforts  me." 

If  so,  maybe  eternal  values  are  buried  in  the  secularly 
unfit  and,  for  the  idealist  at  least,  the  ultimate  back- 
ground of  the  solemn  sifting  of  humanity  is  a  universe 
of  unfathomed  possibility  which  the  Christian  confesses  as 
"  the  life  everlasting." 

Many  of  my  fellow  workers  and  officers  of  the  Associa- 
tion with  other  friends  have  aided  me  by  information  and 
suggestions.  I  thank  them.  I  am  particularly  indebted 
to  Rev.  William  H.  Holloway ;  also,  especially  for  help  in 
the  sociological  interpretation  of  the  race  problem,  to  my 
long-time  friend,  Prof.  Carl  Kelsey. 

New  Yokk,  June,  1909. 


[^] 


CONTENTS 

I.    Tempering  the  Body  Together 

Pass 

I.    "  Men  of  Every  Tribe  and  Tongue  and  People  and  Nation  "     .  17 

II,    The  Unassimilated  Populations 19 

III.  The  New  Struggle  for  the  Union 25 

IV.  The  Place  Problem 28 

V.    The  Underlying  Struggle  for  Democracy       32 

VI.    Competency  of  Missionary  Judgment  on  National  Problems    .  35 

II.    The  South  as  Missionary  Ground 

I.    Sectional  vs.  National  Problems 44 

II.  The  South  as  Missionary  Ground 46 

III.    The  Division  of  Labor  between  Assimilating  Forces  ....  66 

III.    The  Sifting  of  the  South 

I.  The  Two  Souths  and  the  Two  Southerners 66 

II.    The  Varied  South 70 

III.  The  Crisis  of  the  Sifting 77 

IV.  Study  of  the  Well-Sifted  Negro  Community 86 

IV.    The  Sifting  of  Southern  Sentiment 

I.    Sifting  the  Hearts  of  Men 99 

II.  The  Color-Line 116 

III.  Clues  to  Prophecy 119 

V.    What  the  Negro  has  Done  for  Himself 

I.    Success  with  a  Minimum  of  Assistance 127 

II.    Within  the  National  Life 132 

III.    Within  Racial  Lines 140 

_ 


CONTENTS 


VI.    A  Background  for  Black 

PAoa 

I.    Dubious  Verdicts  from  Conflicting  Facts 166 

II.    Need  of  a  Sociological  Background 169 

III.    Alleged  Racial  Traits  and  their  Sociological  Explanations   .    .     171 


VII.    Typical  Missionary  Activities 

I.    Spirit  and  Policy 209 

II.    Strategic  Location 211 

III.    Classification  of  Institutions 212 

A.  Ungraded  Schools 213 

B.  Graded  Elementary  Schools 216 

C.  Secondary  Schools  in  Cities 223 

D.  Rured  Secondary  Schools 229 


VIII.    Typical  Missionary  Activities 
(co7itinued) 

III.  Classification  of  Institutions  (co»/in«ed) 237 

E.  Girls'  Seminaries 237 

F.  Colleges  and  Universities 240 

G.  Specialized  Instruction 247 

IV.  The  Outreach  of  the  Mission  Schools 253 


IX.    Problems  and  Programs  of  Negro 
Education 

I.    Higher  vs.  Industrial  Education 267 

II.    The  General  Educational  Parallel 278 

III.  Expert  Interpretations  of  the  Lessons  of  Experience  .     .     .     .  281 

IV.  Principles  of  Democratic  Education 295 


X.    The  Old  Men  of  the  Mountains 

I.    The  Problem  of  the  Mountains 304 

II.    How  the  Mountain  Man  Lives 312 

III.    Mountain  Life  Reflected  in  the  Mountaineer's  Traits  ....  317 


[xii] 


CONTENTS 


XI.    The  Passing  of  the  Mountaineer 

Page 

I.    The  Exploitation  of  the  Mountains  by  Industry 335 

II.    The  Exploitation  of  the  Mountains  by  Leisure 343 

III.    The  Uplift  of  the  Mountains  by  Education 350 

XII.    Does  the  Purpose  of  God  Thwart  the 

Spirit  of  Christ  ? 

I.    The  Moral  Sifting  of  the  Nation  on  the  Race  Issue    ....  367 

II,    Moral  Struggle  Complicated  by  Intellectual  Difficulties  .    .     .  369 

III.  Examination  of  the  Alleged  Verdict  of  Science 373 

IV.  The  Purpose  of  God  and  the  Race  Question 388 


[  xiii  ] 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Pass 

Tenants  on  School  Farm,  Brick  School,  Enfield,  N.  C 28 

Carnegie  Building,  Fessenden  Academy,  Fla 28 

Two  Congregational  Deacons  of  Rural  Churches 36 

Agricultural  Peasant  of  the  Black  Belt 42 

City  Slum,  Tradd  Street,  Charleston,  S.  C 42 

A.  F.  Beard,  D.D 62 

Old  Memphis T8 

New  Jackson 78 

Home  of  Negro  Landlord,  Thomasville,  Ga 88 

Negro  Artisan  and  Street  of  Artisans'  Homes,  Thomasville,  Ga.      .  88 

Negro  Business  Men's  Homes,  Thomasville,  Ga 92 

Negro  Drug  Store  and  Proprietor,  Thomasville,  Ga. 92 

Negro  Rural  Home,  Piedmont  Region 134 

Negro  Business  Street,  Thomasville,  Ga 134 

Representative  Negroes 140 

Ingram  Chapel,  J.  K.  Brick  School,  N.  C 148 

First  Congregational  Church,  Atlanta,  Ga 148 

The  Yamacraw  Section,  Savannah,  Ga. 152 

Negro  Tenements,  Charleston,  S.  C 152 

Aged  Breadwinners 156 

Servants' Quarters  in  Rear  of  a  Modern  Memphis  Home    ....  160 

The  Cotton  Levee,  New  Orleans,  with  Negro  Longshoremen  .     .     .  160 

Transportation,  Liberty  Co.,  Ga 220 

Homes  in  the  Land  of  Mud-Daub 220 

The  Environment  of  Dorchester  Academy 232 

Primary  Grade,  Andersonville,  Ga 236 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Page 

Graduating  Class,  Straight  University,  New  Orleans 236 

Swayne  Hall,  Talladega  College ;  Chase  Hall,  Fisk  University    .     .  242 

Jubilee  Hall,  Fisk  University ;  DeForest  Chapel,  Talladega  College  242 

Strieby  Hall  and  Beard  Hall,  Tougaloo  University 242 

Cotton  Picking  on  School  Farm 250 

Football  Team,  Burrell  Normal  Institute,  Florence,  Ala 250 

College  Choir,  Fisk  University 256 

CoUege  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  Fisk  University 256 

Domestic  Science  Laboratorj',  Talladega  College 280 

Blacksmith  Shop,  Tougaloo  University 280 

Theological  Graduates,  Talladega  College 298 

Trained  Nurses,  Talladega  College 298 

Primitive  Industry  of  the  Mountains 310 

Modern  Industry  of  the  New  South 310 

Domestic  Grinding-Mill 318 

Old  Water-Mill 318 

The  Mountain  Weaver 332 

The  Cotton-Mill 332 

Black  Mountain  Academy,  Evarts,  Ky 350 

Elementary  Grades,  Black  Mountain  Academy 350 

Professors  and  Students,  Atlanta  Theological  Seminary      ....  360 

Girls'  Dormitory,  Piedmont  College 360 

Typical  Makers  of  Evidence  on  the  Race  Problem 388 


[xvi] 


CHRISTIAN  RECONSTRUCTION 
IN  THE  SOUTH 

I.     TEMPERING    THE    BODY 
TOGETHER 

I.    "MEN  OF  EVERY  TRIBE  AND  TONGUE  AND 
PEOPLE  AND  NATION" 

IF  the  band  of  Mayflower  Pilgrims  had  been  composed 
of  the  same  stuff  as  the  present  nation,  and  in  like 
proportions,  it  would  have  included  twelve  negroes, 
a  Porto  Rican  mulatto,  and  a  mongrel  of  mingled  Indian, 
Chinese,  Japanese,  and  Hawaiian  blood.  Thirteen  of  its 
number  would  have  been  Pilgrims  by  adoption  only,  and 
twenty  more  the  children  of  at  least  one  non-Pilgrim 
parent.  Hardly  one  half  would  have  remained  of  real 
Pilgrim  stock.  Picture  this  strangely  varied  group  kneel- 
ing together  in  the  cabin  of  the  Mayflower  to  weld  itself 
into  a  "  civil  body  pohtick !  "  The  task  is  not  lighter  now 
that  Providence  has  taken  millions  for  hundreds  and  scat- 
tered them  unevenly  over  a  vast  land  of  imperial  natural 
diversities. 

The  early  struggle  for  the  Union  was  an  attempt  to 
harmonize  the  interests  of  an  essentially  homogeneous 
The  Earlier  stock.  They  brought,  to  be  sure,  some  Old- 
Struggle  for  World  animosities  to  these  new  shores,  born 
the  Union  pf    class    struggles    or    the    competitions    of 

mother-lands.  To  these  were  soon  added  differences  created 
by  the  new  environment.  The  scant  population  of  the 
thirteen  colonies  occupied  a  fringe  of  seaboard,  the  widely 

2  [17] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

varied  physical  resources  of  which  were  the  basis  of  eco- 
nomic differences  and  conflicts.  The  North  naturally  be- 
came commercial  and  industrial,  the  South  rural  and 
agricultural.  Intercommunication  was  difficult,  and  only 
the  common  danger  to  their  frontier  from  the  French  and 
Indians,  and  the  united  struggle  against  England,  taught 
the  colonists  cooperation.  They  were  scarcely  able  at 
length  to  write  their  fateful  compromises  into  a  constitu- 
tion. Yet  they  had  all  come  from  a  very  small  region  in 
northwestern  Europe,  where  blood  and  traditions  had  been 
blended  as  in  no  other  area.  They  were  predominatingly 
middle-class  people,  and  save  for  one  colony  were  Protes- 
tants. Their  temperamental  differences,  however  deep,  had 
been  included  in  a  common  history  and  civilization. 

But  now  the  nation  includes  representatives  of  the  en- 
tire human  family  in  their  whole  range  of  physical  and 
American  In-      mental  differences.     The  white,  black,  yellow, 

stitutions  not      brown,    red,   are   all   Americans.      Whatever 

made  for  Our  ,      .  ,    i  i  ,      •  <>    t 

Present  Popu-    sunderings  untold  centuries  of  diverse  expe- 

lation  rience    and     contrasting    environment    have 

wrought  between  the  most  widely  separated  branches  of 
mankind  exist  between  us  as  fellow  citizens  and  intrude  as 
internal  problems  for  our  people.  Men  of  every  tribe, 
tongue,  people,  and  nation  have  become  members  of  our 
common  life.  Our  national  institutions  were  not  made  by 
them  nor  for  them,  but  were  founded  upon  the  ideals  of 
a  very  select  human  group  and  never  fully  applied  even 
within  that  group.  Consequently,  unless  the  foundations 
of  the  Republic  are  to  be  changed,  and  the  American  of 
our  faith  ceases  to  be,  the  diverse  human  stuff  of  the  pres- 
ent nation  must  be  inwardly  prepared  for  participation 
in  a  democratic  order  of  society.  Such  an  order  irrevo- 
cably demands  that  men  be  fit  for  it. 


TEMPERING    THE    BODY    TOGETHER 

II.    THE  UNASSIMILATED  POPULATIONS 

The  peoples  for  whom  the  Americanizing  energy  of  the 
nation  has  hitherto  failed  may  be  considered  in  three 
groups : 

1.     An  old  and  neglected  group.     In  the  triumphant 

march  of  American  civilization  from  east  to  west  across 

TheMoun-         *^^    continent    there    has    been    one    striking 

taineers  of  the     failure.     A  fragment  of  an  original  colonial 

Southern  stock  in  the  fastness  of  the  Southern  Appa- 

Appalachians      i      i  •  •        /•       i  •      .i         •    •!•      i-  <• 

lacnians  remains  nxed  m  the  civilization  of  a 

hundred  years  ago.     They  represent  the  average  American 

of  Abraham  Lincoln's  boyhood  and  are  our  chief  example 

of  an  "  arrested  frontier."     One  finds  here 

the  human  type  not  to  be  met  elsewhere  in  the  United 
States.  He  is  farmer,  hunter,  blacksmith,  shop- 
keeper, or  rude  preacher.  He  is  courageous,  original, 
reads  the  sky  and  forest  in  lieu  of  books,  and  is  little 
troubled  by  the  outside  world.  He  could  not  raise 
cotton,  he  did  not  own  slaves,  and  his  sympathies  were 
with  the  North  rather  than  with  the  South  in  the  Civil 
War.  His  family  lives  as  his  great-grandfather's 
family  lived,  for  change  is  almost  unknown.  Divi- 
sion of  labor  has  httle  place  in  such  society,  where 
homespun  still  prevails.  These  men  are  the  descend- 
ants of  the  backwoodsmen  who  came  from  the  Old 
World,  from  Pennsylvania,  from  Virginia,  and  the 
Carolinas,  to  the  Holston,  the  French  Broad,  the  Ken- 
tucky, and  the  Cumberland.  Retired  from  all  the 
world,  they  reveal  the  effects  of  a  stable  environment 
in  a  remote  region.^ 

Akin  to  the  Appalachian  mountaineer  and  of  the 
same  stock  is  much  of  the  population  of  the  Ozark  re- 

*  Brigham,  Geographical  Influences  in  American  History,  p.  102. 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

gion,  covering  parts  of  Missouri,  Arkansas,  and  Indian 
Territory. 

The  gross  population  of  these  regions  is  over  three  mil- 
lion, but  one  must  deduct  from  the  problem  the  inhabitants 
of  those  valleys  with  their  fertile  fields  and  prosperous  cities 
through  which  civilization  from  the  earliest  time  has  run  as 
through  a  funnel.  There  is  no  uniform  isolation  of  the 
mountain  population,  and  no  accurate  enumeration  of  its 
submerged  element  is  possible.  Yet  it  is  clear  that  here 
is  the  largest  and  most  valuable  fragment  of  the  original 
American  stock  not  fully  assimilated  to  the  national  life. 

Under  this  same  category  of  old  and  neglected  peoples 
must  be  numbered  the  "  Greaser  "  type  —  a  product  of 
rp,  q  .  ,  the  ancient  mingling  of  Spaniard  and  Indian. 
Indian  Mon-  Its  chief  seats  are  New  Mexico  and  Arizona, 
grel  Popula-  Its  proportion  of  illiteracy  greatly  exceeds 
that  of  any  other  part  of  our  population 
classified  as  "  white."  It  constitutes  a  small  but  appealing 
problem  for  national  solution. 

2.     A    new    and    unexpected    group.       Our    national 

T      .     ^.  complacency  with  reference  to  foreign  immi- 

Immigration  \  •{  i  i      i        •  i      i 

from  Eastern       gration  suffered  a  sudden  check  with  the  un- 

and  Southern      foreseen    change    of    the    character    of    that 

urope  immigration,  dating  from  about  1882. 

Tliis  change  was  the  rapid  shifting  of  the  sources 
of  immigration  from  Western  to  Eastern  and  South- 
ern Europe.  A  line  drawn  across  the  continent  of 
Europe  from  northeast  to  southwest,  separating  the 
Scandinavian  Peninsula,  the  British  Isles,  Germany, 
and  France,  from  Russia,  Austria-Hungary,  Italy, 
and  Turkey,  separates  countries  not  only  of  distinct 
races,  but  also  of  distinct  civilizations.  It  separates 
Protestant  Europe  from  Catholic  Europe ;    it  scpa- 

[20l 


TEMPERING    THE    BODY    TOGETHER 

rates  countries  of  representative  institutions  and 
popular  government  from  absolute  monarchies ;  it 
separates  lands  where  education  is  universal  from 
lands  where  illiteracy  predominates ;  it  separates 
manufacturing  countries,  progressive  agriculture, 
and  skilled  labor  from  primitive  hand  industries,  back- 
ward agriculture,  and  unskilled  labor ;  it  separates  an 
educa,ted,  thrifty  peasantry  from  a  peasantry  scarcely 
a  single  generation  removed  from  serfdom;  it  sepa- 
rates Teutonic  races  from  Latin,  Slav,  Semitic,  and 
Mongolian  races.  When  the  sources  of  American  im- 
migration are  shifted  from  the  Western  countries  so 
nearly  allied  to  our  own,  to  Eastern  countries  so  re- 
mote in  the  main  attributes  of  Western  civilization, 
the  change  is  one  that  should  challenge  the  attention 
of  every  citizen.  Such  a  change  has  occurred,  and  it 
needs  only  a  comparison  of  the  statistics  of  immigra- 
tion for  the  year  1882  with  those  of  1902  and  1906  to 
gee  its  extent.  While  the  total  number  of  immigrants 
from  Europe  and  Asiatic  Turkey  was  approximately 
equal  in  1882  and  1902,  yet  in  1882  Western  Europe 
furnished  87  per  cent  of  the  immigrants,  and  in  1902 
only  22  per  cent,  while  the  share  of  Southeastern 
Europe  and  Asiatic  Turkey  increased  from  13  per 
cent  in  1882  to  78  per  cent  in  1902.  During  twenty 
years  the  immigration  of  the  Western  races  most 
nearly  related  to  those  which  have  fashioned  Ameri- 
can institutions  declined  more  than  75  per  cent,  while 
the  immigrants  of  Eastern  and  Southern  races,  un- 
trained in  self-government,  increased  nearly  sixfold.^ 

In  other  words,  for  more  than  two-thirds  of  a  century 

our   incoming   population    came   almost    exclusively    from 

those  lands   which  were  working   out   with   us   the  great 

democratic  tendency.     Some  had  progressed  more  slowly 

'  Commons,  Races  and  Immigrants  in  America,  p.  69. 

fin 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

and  less  successfully  than  we,  but  the  general  tendency 
was  the  same,  and  their  children  came  to  these  shores  in- 
wardly disposed  to  the  ideals  and  institutions  which  we 
were  creating.  The  newest  comers  are  the  victims  of  a  too 
abrupt  transition.  There  is  a  gulf  to  be  bridged  before 
they  can  be  made  worthy  participants  in  our  national 
hfe. 

Another  group  of  the  new  and  unexpected  peoples  has 
come  to  us  by  annexation.  It  is  the  fruit  of  the  so-called 
The  Fruits  of  imperialistic  tendency  of  our  nation.  Hawaii 
Annexation:  brought  US  about  154,000  people,  occupying 
Hawau  eight  mid-Pacific  islands,  with  a  total  area 

about  that  of  New  Jersey.  No  part  of  our  territory  shows 
so  much  ethnic  variety.  Natives  and  half-castes  form  a 
dwindling  half  of  the  population.  Southern  Europe  is 
represented  by  8000  Portuguese.  The  most  aggressive 
element  is  Oriental,  predominatingly  Japanese,  but  includ- 
ing 25,000  Chinese,  and  latterly  Koreans,  and  even  Hin- 
doos. As  to  religion.  Buddhism  is  a  close  second  to  Chris- 
tianity. The  ruling  and  exploiting  Anglo-Saxon  minority 
shows  little  desire  to  equalize  opportunity  for  these  Ameri- 
cans of  other  blood. 

Porto  Rico,  which  is  three-fourths  as  large  as  Connecti- 
cut, is  one  of  the  most  densely  populated  parts  of  our  do- 
main. Its  people  number  nearly  a  million 
and  consist  of  perhaps  100,000  pure  Span- 
iards, 400,000  negroes  and  mulattoes,  and  500,000  "  Porto 
Ricans,"  which  means  people  of  Spanish  and  Indian  mixed 
blood.  Nowhere  on  the  mainland  is  any  such  degree  of 
illiteracy  known  as  prevails  here.  The  nominal  Roman 
Catholic  Christianity  leaves  almost  everything  to  be  de- 
sired. The  superstition,  illiteracy,  poverty,  and  vice  of 
the   Porto   Rican   are   all  un-American   and   constitute   a 

[22] 


TEMPERING    THE    BODY    TOGETHER 

national  problem  which  has  come  to  us  so  unexpectedly  that 
we  have  not  jet  properly  appreciated  it. 

Alaska  as  a  habitation  for  Americans  and  a  possible 
seat  of  civilization  is  so  recent  a  possibility  that  its  popu- 
lation belongs  to  the  unexpected  group.  As 
a  national  domain  it  dates  back  to  1867,  but 
its  mining  camps  are  the  newest  example  of  a  frontier 
waiting  for  complete  Americanization,  and  its  perhaps 
25,000  Eskimos  and  Indians  present  our  only  remaining 
opportunity  for  justice  to  the  original  American. 

3.  An  exceptional  group.  He  ignores  the  central  clue 
to  our  history  who  forgets  that  for  important  elements  of 
our  people  American  democracy  broke  down 
from  the  beginning.  To  Jefferson,  the  most 
idealistic  and  thoroughgoing  of  the  founders  of  the  na- 
tion, it  was  a  perplexity  and  grief  that  there  existed  a 
slave  population  which  even  his  faith  could  not  think  of 
as  included  in  equal  citizenship.  Though  trembling  "  to 
think  that  God  is  just,"  he,  with  most  good  men  of  his 
day,  comforted  himself  with  the  thought  that  the  contradic- 
tion was  for  a  brief  time  and  that  the  neg'ro  would  soon  be 
emancipated  and  deported.  Now  every  eighth  American 
is  black,  and  beside  this  dark  and  massive  problem  every 
other  problem  of  assimilation  dwindles  to  insignificance. 

The  Indian  presented  no  such  original  perplexity  to 
conscience.  New  England  had  indeed  attempted  some- 
what half-heartedly  to  evangelize  him  with- 
out much  thought  of  how  he  was  to  be 
treated  afterward,  but  the  national  policy  from  the  be- 
ginning was  to  consider  him  an  alien  with  whom  treaties 
were  to  be  made  as  with  foreign  nations.  Those  who  tried 
to  Christianize  him  were  always  counted  as  foreign  mis- 
sionaries.   Words  cannot  tell  the  bitterness  of  the  struggle 

_ 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

that  dispossessed  him ;  and  however  benign  and  inevitable 
the  result,  the  methods  employed  were  unspeakably  shame- 
ful and  brutal.  Fragments  of  his  race  were  isolated  and 
engulfed  by,  rather  than  received  into,  the  nation  —  as  one 
swallows  a  speck  of  dust  with  his  food.  The  remnant  of 
less  than  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  thousand  remains 
on  the  reservation,  but  is  rapidly  being  scattered  among 
the  nation  by  the  distribution  of  lands  in  severalty.  This 
means  the  sundering  of  all  ancient  ties  —  the  social  foun- 
dations of  the  Indian's  higher  life  and  aspirations.  Forced 
to  merge  himself  in  a  social  order  abhorrent  to  his  deepest 
instincts,  he  presents  to-day  his  most  pathetic  appeal  for  a 
tolerance  tempered  with  pedagogic  sense  to  ease  his  passing. 
More  than  two  hundred  thousand  Orientals,  chiefly  on 
our  Pacific  Coast,  constitute  another  anomalous  group,  and 
the  only  one  the  treatment  of  which  involves 
us  in  complication  with  foreign  nations.  Re- 
striction of  Chinese  immigration  was  attempted  as  early 
as  1854  by  the  State  of  California,  and  the  nation  com- 
pletely shut  out  the  Chinaman  as  a  competitor  of  American 
labor  by  the  treaty  of  1880  and  law  of  1888.  This  re- 
striction goes  far  beyond  and  is  radically  different  in  prin- 
ciple from  that  practised  toward  any  other  nation.  "  In 
the  case  of  European  immigration,  the  burden  of  proof 
is  upon  the  immigration  authorities  to  show  that  the  im- 
migrant should  be  excluded.  In  the  case  of  the  Chinese, 
the  burden  of  proof  is  on  the  immigrant  to  show  that  he 
should  be  admitted."  -^  The  recent  influx  of  Japanese, 
which  mounted  to  14,000  in  1906,  has  been  checked, 
temporarily  at  least,  by  the  limitation  of  emigration  on 
the  part  of  their  home  government.  A  few  Koreans 
and    Hindoos    have    been     imported    as     scouting    par- 

*  Commons,  Races  and  Immigrants  in  America,  p.  235. 
_ 


TEMPERING    THE    BODY    TOGETHER 

ties  of  great  industrial  armies  which  will  surely  come 
unless  our  anomalous  policy  of  exclusion  is  extended  to 
them  also.  More  than  any  other  group  the  Orientals  are 
feared  as  tending  to  depress  the  American  standard  of 
living.  On  the  other  hand  no  other  is  so  quick  to  resent 
or  so  able  to  revenge  by  war  or  boycott  the  indignities 
put  upon  them.  Thus  facing  the  Pacific,  American  prob- 
lems take  on  international  scope  and  broaden  into  problems 
of  the  relation  of  all  men  upon  the  earth. 

III.    THE  NEW  STRUGGLE  FOR  THE  UNION 

It  is  against  increasing  odds  that  the  nation  to-day  re- 
news the  task  of  creating  a  union  out  of  diverse  elements. 

„.  „    J.     If  we  had  not  the  deeper  problem  of  making 

rioneer  Londi-  .  n       ^      <•  •    -v        •  -e 

tionsmade  men  inwardly  fit  for   our  civilization,  if  we 

Assimilation        were  confronted  only  by  the  older  and  easier 
^^^  problem  of  adjusting  conflicting  sectional  in- 

terests, our  task  would  still  be  harder ;  for  the  fathers  of 
the  Republic  achieved  political  union  and  the  nation  as- 
similated its  earlier  immigrants  under  very  unique  condi- 
tions. To  be  sure,  America  continued  European  inequali- 
ties in  the  class-governments  of  Massachusetts,  Virginia, 
and  indeed  most  of  the  colonies ;  but  social  privilege  largely 
melted  away  as  men  turned  to  face  the  West.  They  found 
there  an  empire  of  free  land.  The  frontier  knew  no  social 
advantage,  and  its  temper  came  to  dominate  the  Union. 
Men  were  not  prejudged  and  socially  placed  according  to 
a  conventional  scheme.  All  prizes  were  open  to  the  primi- 
tive virtues.  Men  struggled  against  nature  rather  than 
with  one  another.  As  soon,  however,  as  the  land  was  oc- 
cupied and  they  turned  to  human  competition.  It  was  seen 
that  the  dominant  classes  were  not  inwardly  neighborly 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

nor  tolerant  of  men  of  other  types.  Our  hospitable  soil 
hitherto,  and  not  our  brotherly  spirit,  has  Americanized 
the  alien. 

Now  our  absorbing  power  has  certainly  suffered  diminu- 
tion. Americanism  —  no  matter  whose  —  was  of  course 
"The  Great  bound  to  change  under  the  pressure  of  chang- 
Dilution"  ing  social  forces.     But  our  departure  from 

the  original  type  has  been  abnormally  rapid  because  of 
the  "  great  dilution  "  of  national  character  by  alien  blood 
and  spirit.  The  prior  question  now  is,  Who  shall  Ameri- 
canize the  American.''  Witness  the  indispensable  and  highly 
successful  attempt  by  the  Hebrew  Educational  Alliance  in 
New  York  City  to  prepare  the  incoming  Jew  for  intelli- 
gent citizenship.  No  one  can  praise  too  highly  its  results ; 
yet  no  one  can  pretend  that  the  Americanism  to  which  they 
are  introduced  is  that  of  Puritan  Massachusetts,  or  old 
Virginia,  or  even  of  the  Teutonized  Middle  West.  It  may 
be  better;   it  is  certainly  not  identical. 

The  issue,  moreover,  is  not  whether  we  have  passed  the 
theoretical  danger  point  in  the  saturation  of  the  nation 
^  ..  ,  by  alien  stuff.  It  is  that  of  its  abnormal 
Aliens  at  the  congestion  at  our  weakest  spots,  namely,  in 
Weak  Spots  of  the  cities  and  in  geographical  regions  of  little 
assimilative  vigor.  The  unassimilated  masses 
will  not  and  cannot  be  spread  proportionately  throughout 
the  native  population.  The  critical  point  of  assimilation 
as  a  national  problem  relates  to  these  areas  of  alien 
congestion. 

Again,  as  never  before  In  America,  the  "  ascensional 
energy  of  the  individual  "  finds  a  check  in  a  stratified  so- 
Stratification  of  cial  system  of  increasing  rigidity.  If  Danish 
Society  Hilda    had    immigrated    to    the    prairies  of 

North  Dakota  she  would  have  sung  in  the  choir  of  the 


TEMPERING    THE    BODY   TOGETHER 

little  white  church  with  the  son  of  an  Iowa  farmer,  and 
their  children  would  have  gone  to  the  Agricultural  College 
and  perhaps  to  Congress.  Stopping  in  the  suburbs  of 
New  York  City,  she  must  marry  the  iceman  or  the  green- 
grocer. Everywhere  throughout  our  older  society  the  in- 
dividual is  forced  back  upon  his  own  class,  which  only  by 
the  combined  efforts  of  its  stragglers  can  hope  for  great 
advancement.  Hence  our  day  has  seen  a  great  strengthen- 
ing of  these  struggling  groups  within  the  nation.  By  his 
vocation,  and  often  by  his  race,  the  newcomer  is  predes- 
tined to  join  one  or  another  of  them.  He  finds  no  easy 
opportunity  to  obtain  the  knowledge  and  sympathy  which 
overcome  artificial  and  even  instinctive  barriers  and  release 
in  men  their  essential  like-mindedness.  Only  in  the  South, 
to  be  sure,  is  the  system  of  social  caste  professed  and  dog- 
matically defended,  but  it  is  actually  in  force  almost  every- 
where in  the  Union  and  is  the  greatest  and  most  deadly 
foe  to  the  assimilation  of  the  alien  groups.  Increasingly, 
therefore,  it  Is  the  part  of  patriotism  and  statesmanship 
to  endeavor  to  maintain  the  ideal  of  national  unity  on 
democratic  terms  and  consciously  to  direct  the  assimilat- 
ing forces.  It  is  more  complicated  than  it  was  yesterday ; 
a  vaster  and  more  urgent  contribution  to  national  destiny, 
and  a  mightier  challenge  to  the  intelligence  and  energy  of 
all  good  men.     It  is  the  new  struggle  for  the  Union. 

Beyond  all  physical  and  social  difl5culties,  present-day 
democracy  Involves  a  moral  difficulty  of  its  own  creating. 
We  are  asking  ourselves  to  go  further  and 
do  more  than  our  fathers  tried ;  namely,  to 
carry  democracy  into  detail  and  to  extend  it  Hterally  to 
all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  There  Is  a  rising  standard 
and  an  enlarged  definition  of  the  American  Ideal.  It 
means  more  to  us,  In  our  complex  civilization  must  mean 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

more  varied  and  difficult  adjustments  of  men,  than  Jeffer- 
son dreamed.  And  we  have  solemnly  undertaken  to  solve 
the  race  problem  on  democratic  terms  —  a  task  self-im- 
posed by  conscience  and  a  sharpened  sense  of  equity,  and 
broader  than  any  the  former  generations  knew. 

IV.    THE  RACE  PROBLEM 

The  praise  which  has  been  lavished  on  the  assimilative 
vigor  of  the  American  stock  and  on  the  triumph  of  their 
The  Crux  of  democratic  institutions  is  justified  only  when 
Democracy  one  ignores  the  exceptional  group  —  roughly, 
one-eighth  of  our  mainland  population.  In  spite  of  the 
odds  above  enumerated,  we  might  look  forward  to  the  tri- 
umph of  the  American  spirit  over  the  social  comphcations 
of  the  age  except  for  the  difficulty  which  lurks  always  in 
the  background  —  the  race  problem.  This  cuts  the  nerve 
of  our  efforts  for  the  most  needy.  It  is  the  crux  of 
democracy. 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  nation's  duty  of  fitting  its 
people  for  citizenship,  the  race  problem  is,  as  Prof.  A.  B. 
"The  Anglo-  Hart  has  called  it,  the  Anglo-Saxon  problem. 
Saxon  Its   root   is   a   wavering   faith   in   democracy 

Problem"  which  makes  us  fail  to  use  to  the  full  our 

Americanizing  vigor.  If  the  inner  transformation  of  all 
people  of  alien  spirit  could  be  undertaken  by  us  in  perfect 
equity  and  benevolence,  and  with  the  equal  application  of 
our  ample  resources,  the  result  would  show,  of  course, 
various  degrees  of  resistance  on  the  part  of  the  unassimi- 
lated  groups.  Different  capacities  for  speedy  and  perfect 
participation  in  our  life  would  be  revealed.  This  is  the 
objective  natural  difficulty  in  the  making  over  of  those 
who  are  at  present  unfit  for  democracy.     It  must  be  fully 

[28] 


Tenants  on  School  Farm 
Brick  School,  Enfield,  N.  C. 


Caiinf-gik  Buiidinc;,  Fessenden  Acadeaiv,  Fla. 
Built  entirely  by  negro  labor 


TEMPERING    THE    BODY    TOGETHER 

and  frankly  recognized  and  adequately  measured  before 
we  close  the  case. 

But  such  a  statement  of  the  case  bears  no  resemblance 
to  our  actual  problem.  What  we  actually  find  and  must 
reckon  with  is  the  deep-seated  disposition  to  give  up  in 
advance,  and  on  theoretical  grounds,  with  respect  to 
certain  peoples  called  the  "  lower  races."  The  common 
thought  is  that  some  peoples  are  only  belated  in  the  process 
of  civilization,  and  could  easily  catch  up  under  proper 
stimulus.  The  mountain  people  of  the  Southern  Appala- 
chian are  ascribed  to  this  class.  Other  peoples  are  sup- 
posed to  be  essentially  inferior  —  as  all  the  off-color  races 
—  and  most  of  all,  the  negro. 

To  be  sure,  popular  judgment  in  the  matter  does  not 
at  all  draw  the  line  where  the  scientific  judgment  is  thought 
Popular  vs  ^^  draw  it.     The  supposed  scientist  is  likely 

"Scientific"  to  say  that  the  distinction  between  superior 
Judgment  g^^^^  inferior  races  is,  at  the  bottom,  that  be- 

tween the  temperate  and  tropical  zones.  This  makes  the 
Chinaman  and  the  American  Indian  belong  to  the  superior 
races ;  but  the  trade-unionist  of  the  Pacific  coast  and  the 
Western  ranchmen  do  not  think  so.  In  the  Northern  cities 
the  negro  indiscriminately  occupies  the  same  tenement  as 
the  recent  emigrant  from  southern  Europe,  and  "  dago  " 
and  *'  nigger "  tend  to  become  interchangeable  terms. 
Finally,  although  by  his  proportionate  influence  on  his- 
tory the  Jew  is  the  greatest  of  the  human  stocks,  in  Amer- 
ican practise  he  is  widely  shut  out  from  some  of  the 
privileges  of  other  citizens.  The  point  is  that  we  have 
everywhere  to  deal  with  the  spirit  which  draws  a  line 
against  a  greater  or  smaller  part  of  our  population  and 
treats  it  as  incapable  of  full  Americanization  under  demo- 
cratic ideals. 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

Now  it  is  to  be  always  insisted  that  our  problem  is  not 

that  of  the  natural  equality  of  men,  but  of  their  success- 

T^  ful  preparation  for  participation  in  the  com- 

Democracy  .         ^   ^•l^         ^i  ^ 

does  not  de-        Tnon  national  liie.     There  has  been  some  ac- 

pend  on  tual  practise  of  democracy  in  the  world  — - 

'^^^   ^  less  than  we  have  sometimes  thought,  but  still 

some  successful  association  of  men  under  self-government 
and  with  the  will  to  equalize  opportunity.  Democracy 
has  existed ;  equality  never ;  therefore  democracy  does  not 
depend  on  equality.  Its  success  has  not  been  based  on  the 
natural  equipment  of  its  members,  but  rather  on  their 
domination  by  common  ideals.  It  is  the  vigor  and  health 
of  spiritual  forces  of  social  control  which  makes  democ- 
racy possible.  "  By  one  Spirit  are  we  all  baptized  into  one 
body." 

Again,  it  is  clearly  and  positively  to  be  stated  that  amal- 
gamation of  blood  through  intermarriage  is  not  the  neces- 
sary or  desirable  method  of  initiating  and  hastening  the 
assimilation,  at  least  of  the  more  divergent  stocks.  The 
marrying  of  the  white  and  negro  in  the  South,  for  exam- 
ple, as  a  means  of  solving  the  race  problem,  is  not  seri- 
ously contemplated  by  anybody. 

But  this  plain  and  explicit  denial  must  in  candor  be  ac- 
companied by  the  denial  also  of  that  negative  dogmatism 
Valid  Objec-  which  forbids  amalgamation  on  the  ground 
tions  to  Amal-  of  an  alleged  natural  barrier  between  the 
^ma  ion,  ^  races.  It  is  absolutely  not  proven  that  na- 
chical,  not  ture  interposes  or  intends  to  interpose  any 

Physical  physical    or    mental    barrier.      All    supposed 

facts  to  the  contrary  miss  the  mark  because  conditions 
have  never  allowed  a  fair  trial  of  the  case.  The  half-breed 
has  everywhere  been  the  half-caste.  His  status  and  fate 
have  been  those  of  the  underfed,  the  ill-housed,  the  socially 


TEMPERING    THE    BODY   TOGETHER 

unprivileged.     His  lack  of  a  controlling  and  saving  social 

tradition,  and  the  conflicting  impulses  of  his  two  worlds, 

have  subjected  him  to  mental  overstrain.     But  his  problem 

is  social  and  psychological,  not  physical.     No  one  knows 

whether   under    equal    opportunity    the    half-breed   would 

show  less  fecundity,  less  forcefulness,  less  physical  stamina 

and  moral  balance  than  the  basal  stocks.     The  laboratory 

of  civilization  has  not  yet  tried  that  experiment.     No  state 

has  ever  been  great  enough  to  do  social  justice  to  those 

human  mixtures  which  are  banned  by  race  prejudice,  or 

to  care  to  find  out  their  actual  capacity. 

None  the  less  and  partly  for  this  reason  amalgamation 

as  a  solvent  of  the  race  problem  is  definitely  to  be  rejected 

.      ,        ^.        as  tending  to  confusion  and  aggravating  the 
Amalgamation  .  ,.„,!  t-  -i  -i 

a  Mistaken  Solu-  ongnial   difficulty,      it  is   a   mistaken   social 

tion;  and  method,   the  possible   profitable   employment 

Unnecessary  ^^  ^j^j^j^  -^  ^^^^  ^^^^^.^  -^  beyond  the  hori- 
zon of  our  practical  choices.  And  it  is  not  necessary.  All 
the  present  European  nations  are  indeed  the  products  of 
amalgamation,  but  an  amalgamation  which  "  occurred  at 
a  time  so  remote  that  it  has  been  ascribed  to  the  Stone 
Age.  The  later  inroads  have  either  been  but  temporary 
and  have  left  but  slight  impression,  or  they  have  resulted 
in  a  division  of  territory.  Thus  the  conquest  of  Britain 
by  the  Teutons  and  the  Normans  has  not  produced  amal- 
gamation so  much  as  it  has  caused  a  segregation  of  the 
Celts  in  Scotland,  Wales,  and  Ireland,  and  of  the  Teutons, 
with  their  later  but  slight  infusion  of  Normans,  in  Eng- 
land. On  the  continent  of  Europe  this  segregation  has 
been  even  more  strongly  marked."  ^  Now  racial  distinc- 
tiveness has  not  kept  the  Scotch  and  Welsh  from  full  and 
loyal  partnership  in  British  nationality ;  and  Ireland's 
*  Commons,  Races  and  Immigrants  in  America,  p.  17. 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

estrangement  is  due  to  flagrant  social  injustice  based  on 
race  prejudice.  There  are  plenty  of  analogies,  then,  to 
show  that  it  is  possible  to  include  diverse  races  in  the  es- 
sential spiritual  unity  of  the  nation  without  the  mingling 
of  blood,  and  also  plenty  of  warnings  against  the  fatefully 
inevitable  schisms  and  irrepressible  conflicts  which  come 
when  an  included  population  of  distinct  race  is  denied 
equal  opportunity  in  the  nation. 

Our  actual  business  is  assimilation.  It  is  to  make  learn- 
ers of  all  in  the  nation,  teaching  its  members  to  observe 

T .    .^     .  .  all  things  which  are  characteristic  of  Ameri- 

Limits  of  As-  °  .     ,  . 

similation  to  be  cans.  For  "  it  is  not  physical  amalgamation 
discovered  that   unites   mankind;    it   is   mental   commu- 

II  y  y  ria^  nity.  To  be  great,  a  nation  need  not  be  of 
one  blood ;  it  must  be  of  one  mind.  Racial  inequality  and 
inferiority  are  fundamental  only  to  the  extent  that  they 
prevent  mental  and  moral  assimilation."  ^  Now  no  human 
mind  can  tell  in  advance  of  the  event  whether  and  to  what 
extent  mental  and  moral  assimilation  is  impossible.  To 
find  out  by  actual  trial  is  the  nation's  central  task. 

V.    THE  UNDERLYING  STRUGGLE  FOR  DEMOCRACY 

In  the  problem  of  assimilating  the  various  groups  of 
incomplete  Americans  we  touch  an  acute  phase  of  the  pro- 
foundest  of  human  issues  —  the  struggle  for  and  against 
democracy.     "  In  this  warfare  there  is  no  discharge." 

With  the  growth  of  wealth  and  luxury  there  are  daily 

more  people  who  do  not  anticipate  nor  desire  the  assimila- 

Fundamental       ^^^^  ^^  alien  groups  into  the  national  life  on 

Democracy  in      democratic  terms.      Many  will  thoughtlessly 

Danger  deny   this,   some   will  deliberately   resist   the 

charge,   yet  the   fact   remains :    the   democracy    in   which 

'  Commons,  Races  and  Immigrants  in  America,  p.  20. 
_ 


TEMPERING    THE    BODY    TOGETHER 

we  believe  is  rather  a  democracy  of  the  descendants  of  the 
races  of  the  temperate  zone  or  of  northern  Europeans  or 
of  long-headed  blondes  —  not  the  democracy  of  all  Amer- 
icans. This  is  positively  not  a  sectional  phenomenon.  Its 
most  outspoken  profession  is  in  the  South,  but  its  preva- 
lent spirit  is  national. 

We  are  not  without  explicit  exhortations  as  well  as 
subtle  temptations  to  choose  the  easier  task  of  tempering 
The  Tempta-  the  diverse  American  groups  together  on  a 
tion  to  adjust  non-democratic  basis.  Mr.  Alfred  Holt 
Groups  within  ^^  i  f^j.  example,  recently  warned  and 
the  Nation  on  '  i  i    i  •   i       • 

a  Non-demo-       urged  the  assembled  sociologists  of  the  na- 

cratic  Basis  tion  that  the  alleged  lower  races  should  be 
taught  by  precept,  law,  and  social  convention  to  accept 
a  permanent  caste  status ;  that  they  should  be  left  uncor- 
rupted  by  the  American  spirit,  content  in  the  unalterable 
lot  of  the  peasant.  He  thinks  that  the  alternative  is  a 
devastating  race  war,  the  responsibility  for  which  will  be 
theirs  who  have  taught  the  masses  to  aspire  and  to 
struggle.  On  the  other  hand,  we  have  recently  had  many 
a  persuasive  setting  forth  of  the  beauty  of  the  social  sys- 
tem of  the  old  South.  Looking  at  it  as  it  seems  to  those 
who  hold  it  in  memories  mellowed  and  softened  by  time,  it 
strongly  appeals  to  those  of  us  who  are  daily  irritated  by 
the  struggle  with  household  servants,  or  nagged  into  mean- 
ness by  endless  labor  controversies.  How  natural  the 
thought,  "  If  we  could  only  have  a  recognized  servile  class 
which  knew  and  kept  its  place  all  would  be  peace " !  Com- 
pared with  this  pleasing  vision  how  stubborn  the  reality  to 
which  actual  conditions  destine  us !  How  aggravating  the 
incomplete  American  as  neighbor  or  employee ;  how  "  up- 
pity !  "  the  new  negro ;  how  socially  difficult  any  man  who 
'  Studies  in  the  American  Race  Problem,  ch.  vi. 
3  [sT] 


CHRISTIAN    EECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

stumbles  upward,  but  half  appreciating  the  inner  standards 
and  sense  of  fitness  of  a  more  favored  group !  What  lack 
of  gratitude,  what  frequent  contempt,  repays  him  who 
would  help !  Against  such  difficulties  shall  we  not  cease  to 
strive  ? 

Well,  democracy  as  a  social  policy  is  not  likely  long  to 
continue  unless  reenforced  by  some  profounder  sanction. 
Democracy  "a  "  ^^  ^^  ^  ^^^^  "^  rehgion,"  says  Professor 
Sort  of  Reii-  James,  "  and  we  are  bound  not  to  admit  its 
S^o^  failure."     Specifically  it  is  an  expression  of 

the  characteristic  Christian  passion  for  "  the  more  feeble, 
the  less  honorable,  the  unlovely."  "  God  tempered  the 
body  together,  giving  more  abundant  honor  to  the  part 
which  lacked."  The  defense  of  this  paradox  is  possible 
only  on  religious  grounds,  and  intelligible  only  to  those 
for  whom  these  grounds  are  good.  To  be  sure  the  political 
and  economic  tendencies  of  the  present  age  have  given 
vast  opportunity  to  the  democratic  spirit.  Many  under 
favorable  conditions  are  capable  of  accepting  it  imita- 
tively.  But  its  continued  mastery  of  men  depends  upon 
its  power  to  reproduce  the  inner  certainty  and  incorrupt- 
ible zeal  of  an  original  spiritual  insight. 

Old  Aunt  Dinah  died  the  other  day  down  in  Alabama. 
She  was  a  delightful  example  of  the  old-fashioned  negro 
type,  numbers  of  which  have  survived  in  connection  with 
almost  all  the  older  schools  of  the  American  Missionary 
Association  in  the  South.  They  transferred  the  affection 
which  they  had  for  their  former  masters,  unblemished  and 
undiminished,  and  lavished  it  upon  those  who  now  stood 
to  them  for  power  and  kindliness.  They  never  compre- 
hended what  was  sought  in  the  freeing  of  their  race.  For 
themselves  they  passionately  repudiated  any  act  or  senti- 
ment  which   disturbed   their   inbred    sense   of   inferiority. 

[m] 


TEMPERING    THE    BODY   TOGETHER 

They  wanted  only  to  serve,  to  cling,  to  fulfil  life  on  the 
level  of  subjection  to  some  white  master.  Few  fulfil  so 
appropriately  the  role  which  they  inwardly  accept.  It 
is  difficult  for  the  mind  without  an  innate  democratic  pas- 
sion to  see  that  all  this  is  after  all  less  beautiful  than  the 
too  frequent  representative  of  the  new  order  —  obnoxious 
in  dress,  in  voice,  in  manners,  an  unsatisfactory  worker 
and  still  less  satisfactory  enjoyer  of  the  means  of  life, 
an  irresponsible  member  of  the  state  and  a  potential  men- 
ace to  it.  Yet  the  most  perfect  slave  is  lower  than  the 
most  imperfect  freeman.  However  admirable  the  choice 
fruit  of  the  old  order,  "  he  that  is  least  in  the  new  king- 
dom is  greater  than  he." 

May  one  count  on  the  ratification  of  this  judgment  by 
men  as  the  years  fulfil  their  present  tendencies  and  bring 
forth  their  certain  surprises.''  We  do  believe  so,  and  will 
risk  the  outcome.  The  inner  springs  of  democracy  may 
be  trusted.  There  will  not  fail  a  line  of  men  who  have 
seen  the  vision  of  human  brotherhood  and  who  will  storm 
the  universe  to  make  the  vision  good. 

"Speak  it  boldly,  'These  are  Gods,' 
All  besides  are  ghosts." 

VI.    COMPETENCY  OF  MISSIONARY  JUDGMENT  ON 
NATIONAL  PROBLEMS 

It  is  the  fashion  to  discount  the  testimony  of  the  man 

on  the  hilltop  in  favor  of  that  of  the  man  on  the  ground. 

,p,      ,j  In  judging  the  prospects   of  our  unassimi- 

the  Ground  vs.   lated  American  groups  the  near  view  is  pre- 

the  Man  on         ferred  to   the   far  view.      "  Their  neighbors 
the  Hilltop  ^^^^^    ^j^g^    ^^^^„    jg    ^j^g    ^j,^       rpj^g   ^^^g^ 

understands  the  Chinaman ;    the  Plains  the  Indian ;    the 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

South  the  negro.  Especially  in  the  latter  case  is  there 
passionate  insistence  that  the  "  outsider  "  keep  his  hands 
off  and  leave  practical  adjustments  to  the  immediately  re- 
sponsible parties.  Especially  if  the  outsider  be  pohtician 
—  or  missionary !  I  do  not  doubt  that  the  South  has 
suffered  at  times  from  both. 

It  happens,  therefore,  that  testimony  proceeding  from 
missionary  sources,  this  book  for  example,  has  to 
™,     .  meet  a  certain  presumption  of  unreliability, 

against  Mis-  The  missionary,  it  is  first  alleged,  is  not  in 
sionary  Com-  contact  with  a  full  and  representative  range 
petency  ^^  ^^^^^^     «  rpj^^  trouble  is  that  in  the  schools 

they  see  the  best  specimens  of  the  race,  at  an  impression- 
able period  of  their  lives,  and  under  abnormal  condi- 
tions." ^  Their  good  showing  is  possible  because  they 
"  work  only  with  stringently  sifted  material."  ^  They  do 
not  touch  the  masses. 

Again,  the  missionary  is  a  sentimentalist.  No  more 
damning  charge,  it  is  assumed,  can  be  laid  against  any 
man  in  this  practical  and  scientific  age. 

In  view  of  the  first  charge  it  will  be  illuminating  to 
consider  the  range  and  character  of  the  contacts  which 
Extent  and  In-  a  representative  missionary  organization  has 
timacy  of  Mis-  with  the  materials  of  its  problem.  The  Amer- 
lonary  on  ican  Missionary  Association  has  carried  on 
Significant  religious  or  educational  work  for  the  negro 

Facts  at  from  two  to  three  hundred  points  in  twelve 

Southern  states  during  a  period  of  sixty  years.  During 
all  this  time  it  has  touched  the  life  of  the  race  in  all  its 
phases  and  extremes. 

Its  work  at  Fessenden  Academy  in  central  Florida,  for 

*  Kelsey,  The  Negro  Farmer,  p.  6. 

^  Tillinghast,  The  Negro  in  Africa  and  America,  p.  214. 

[S6] 


2       t« 


w      ^ 


O 


TEMPERING    THE    BODY   TOGETHER 

example,  began  with  a  people  nearer  Africa  than  any 
other  group  of  American  negroes.  In  this  semi-tropical 
The  Ne»ro  of  climate,  life  was  possible  without  stove  or 
the  Turpentine  shoes.  Cooking  was  done  the  year  round  in 
^^™P  the  open  air.     When  at  length  capital  came 

in  to  hew  the  forest,  drain  off  the  turpentine,  and  strip 
the  phosphate  beds,  these  lowest  of  negroes  were  the  crude 
recruits  who  rushed  blindly  into  the  hardest  of  industrial 
fates  —  that  of  unskilled  transient  laborers,  living  in  tem- 
porary camps  and  continually  moving  on  as  industry  de- 
spoils one  place  after  another.  "  North  Carolina  nigger  " 
is  a  generic  term  for  turpentine  worker;  and  Principal 
Wiley  of  the  Fessenden  school  finds  out  by  statistical  in- 
vestigation that  a  large  proportion  of  such  workers  in 
his  community  are  actually  immigrants  from  the  "  old 
North  state."  This  shows  what  the  exploiting  industries 
do  for  their  workers.  Migration  becomes  a  habit.  The 
material  product  is  lumber  and  naval  stores ;  the  human 
products  irresponsible,  homeless  men,  criminals,  and 
vagrants. 

The  typical  camp  consists  of  parallel  rows  of  company 
houses,  generally  single-roomed,  battened  cabins,  with  tight 
shutters  at  the  windows,  and  mud  or  brick  fireplaces. 
Rarely  they  are  whitewashed.  A  company  commissary, 
aptly  called  "  the  grab  "  (where  supplies  are  bought  at 
upwards  of  thirty  per  cent  above  ordinary  figures),  and  a 
turpentine-still  complete  the  picture. 

Now,  "  single  men  in  barricks  don't  grow  into  plaster 
saints,"  nor  ebony  either.  Turpentine  workers  are  mostly 
young.  Vice  is  their  amusement  —  drinking,  gambling, 
lewdness.  Women  camp-followers  cook  and  wash  for  and 
live  with  successive  men.  There  are  always  exceptions  — • 
decent  men  with  families,  who  have  caught  the  migratory 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

habit  but  try  to  protect  their  wives  and  children.  They 
seek  to  rent  Kttle  cabins  apart  from  the  quarters.  A  few 
rise  to  be  bosses  or  succeed  financially  by  sub-letting  tur- 
pentine rights,  but  wages  are  paid  infrequently  and  often 
in  checks  on  the  company  store,  which  contrives  to  keep 
the  employee  generally  in  debt.  The  "  gentleman's  agree- 
ment "  between  employers,  and  sometimes  the  rifle  and 
bloodhound,  keeps  him  from  running  away.  It  is  not  an 
attractive  life.  Yet  the  lure  of  it,  its  wandering  and  gre- 
garious irresponsibility,  attracts  many  a  boy  from  the 
farm.  Thus  the  turpentine,  lumber,  and  phosphate  in- 
dustries are  educational  institutions.  They  teach  succes- 
sive generations  of  illiterates  to  know  nothing  better. 

If  these  are  exceptional  negroes,  the  best  specimens  of 
their  race,  what  is  the  average  life?  Yet,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  the  saloon  party  enfranchised  a  thousand  negroes 
in  the  county  (by  paying  their  poll-taxes),  the  influence 
of  Fessenden  Academy  carried  its  precinct  for  no  license 
in  the  late  local  option  campaign ;  and  now  and  then  even 
from  the  turpentine  huts  a  boy  or  girl  and  sometimes  a 
family  is  redeemed  to  better  things. 

Recently  there  has  been  erected  at  Fessenden  a  modest 
Carnegie  building.  Not  only  was  the  gift  secured  by  a 
Experience  negro  principal,  but  the  building  was  de- 
with  the  Negro  signed  by  a  negro  architect,  whose  pro- 
in  Industry  fessional    training    was    had    at    a    mission 

school,  and  erected  entirely  by  negro  labor  at  a  cost  of 
some  $8000.  The  master  builder  acquired  his  trade  under 
his  slave-trained  father,  now  a  prosperous  contractor 
in  Alabama.  Two  industrial  teachers  —  one  trained  at 
Hampton  and  one  at  Talledega  —  shared  the  direction 
of  the  work.  The  two  other  regular  carpenters  were 
products   of   the   Brick  School   at  Enfield,   N.   C.      Their 

[3S] 


TEMPERING    THE    BODY   TOGETHER 

work  was  supplemented  by  that  of  the  Fessenden  school- 
boys. The  chief  mason,  a  slave-trained  artisan,  was  aided 
by  a  Baptist  preacher  and  a  nondescript  who  had  "just 
picked  up  his  trade."  The  mortar-maker  was  taught  his 
job  in  the  United  States  army.  The  plasterer,  an  Ohio 
negro  and  fine  workman,  regularly  commanding  $5  per 
day,  stipulated  that  he  be  allowed  two  half-days  per  week 
to  get  drunk.  His  assistants  had  less  ability  but  like 
habits.  The  painting  contractor,  the  son  of  a  free  negro, 
and  much  above  the  average  in  ability  and  character,  is 
one  of  the  leading  craftsmen  in  his  line  in  a  neighboring 
Florida  city.  He  uses  neither  tobacco  nor  liquor,  has  a 
good  education  and  genuine  artistic  gifts  as  a  decorator. 
He  employs  at  times  as  many  as  ten  men,  and  his  work  on 
the  Carnegie  building  was  an  excellent  job.  Indeed  the 
building  as  a  whole  was  the  most  satisfactory  of  some  ten 
or  a  dozen  built  by  the  Association  in  various  parts  of  the 
South  during  the  same  year,  part  under  white  contractors 
and  a  few  with  white  labor  exclusively.  On  most  of  the 
buildings  white  and  negro  laborers  worked  side  by  side  at 
the  same  trades,  making  immediate  comparison  possible. 

The  fortunes  of  the  work  were  not  all  joyous.  The 
principal  complained  that  most  of  the  men  continually 
asked  to  draw  pay  faster  than  it  was  earned  and  added: 

Some  of  my  other  workmen  that  had  not  been  trained 
would  go  off  after  pay-day,  and  the  next  thing  I 
would  hear  was  that  they  were  in  the  lock-up  at  Ocala 
charged  with  drunken  brawls  or  fighting.  One  was 
charged  with  gambling  and  had  to  flee. 

The  trouble  with  some  was  that  they  did  not  keep 
their  word.  I  would  scour  the  country  for  a  man, 
and  get  his  promise,  and  the  promise  would  not  be 
kept.     I  had  more  trouble  and  quite  as  much  disap- 

[39] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

pointment   in   digging   the    basement   as   the   United 
States  will  have  in  digging  the  canal. 

Hot  weather  and  hard  work,  even  with  good  pay, 
did  not  mix.  Of  course  we  got  the  basement,  but  it 
was  with  the  dis-operation  of  the  ox,  the  nag,  the  boys, 
the  physical  labor,  and  planning  of  your  servant,  and, 
more  than  all,  the  power  of  God. 

This  certainly  does  not  prove  that  negro  labor  is  fault- 
less ;  it  does  prove  that  a  missionary  agency  in  its  indus- 
Exnerience  trial  experience  has  opportunity  to  discover 

with  the  Negro  the  faults  of  its  average  representatives.  The 
in  Other  Lines  Association  erects  ten  or  a  dozen  buildings 
every  year.  Negro  hands  have  built  property  for  it  worth 
millions  of  dollars.  The  Association  knows  the  agri- 
cultural negro  through  a  dozen  school  farms  and  some 
scores  of  tenants,  whose  successes  and  failures  are  matters 
of  record ;  and  this  experience  happens  to  cover  all  the 
chief  agricultural  provinces  of  the  South.  It  knows  the 
negro  in  domestic  service  through  the  necessity  of  pro- 
viding three  meals  each  day  and  beds  every  night  for  two 
and  a  half  regiments  of  colored  pupils.  It  has  employed 
many  more  artisans,  farmers,  and  cooks  than  it  ever  has 
teachers  and  preachers.  It  knows  the  negro  upper  classes 
too,  the  educated  and  select.  Edgar  Gardner  Murphy 
shows  that  the  South's  chief  ignorance  of  the  race  is  at 
this  point. ^  Representatives  of  the  Association  are  ad- 
mitted into  hearts  and  homes  where  only  friends  can  enter. 
Thus  through  vital  contacts  at  all  significant  parts  of  the 
race's  life,  in  tAvelve  states  through  forty  years,  it  has  been 
acquiring  information.  If  it  is  ignorant,  it  is  not  because 
of  aloofness  from  the  heart  of  the  problem. 

»  Present  South,  p.  168. 

[lo] 


TEMPERING    THE    BODY   TOGETHER 


On  the  contrary  Mr.  A.  H.  Stone,  one  of  the  most  meri- 
torious and  candid  of  recent  Southern  writers,  illustrates 
the  fact  that  the  man  on  the   ground  may 
Critic  uS^Orig-  have  his  gaze  fixed  on  his  own  feet.     He  ex- 
inal  Muck-  pends   considerable   sarcasm  on  the  assump- 

^^^^  tion  of  a  Northern  radical  editor  that  a  man 

in  New  York  may  understand  the  negro  better  than  a 
man  in  Mississippi.  In  many  respects  Mr.  Stone's  survey 
of  negro  conditions  is  very  broad  and  illuminating,  but 
no  syllable  in  his  voluminous  book  indicates  that  he  at  all 
recognizes  the  experience  or  attaches  any  weight  to  the 
testimony  of  another  distinguished  Mississippian,  Major 
R.  W.  Millsaps.  Mr.  Stone's  plantation  experiment  leaves 
him  with  a  very  poor  impression  of  negro  labor.  Major 
Millsaps  owns  a  plantation  of  five  hundred  acres  within 
a  few  miles  of  Mr.  Stone's.  On  it  he  has  twenty  negro 
families,  including  seventy-five  people  in  all.  With  them 
he  has  tried  the  daring  experiment  of  trusting  tenants 
without  an  overseer.  His  own  version  of  its  results  is 
thus  reported  by  Mr.  Baker: 

"  Did  it  work?  "  I  asked. 

"  I  have  never  lost  one  cent,"  said  Major  Millsaps ; 
"  no  negro  has  ever  failed  to  pay  up,  and  you 
could  n't  drive  them  off  the  place.  When  other  farm- 
ers complain  of  shortage  of  labor  and  tenants,  I  never 
have  had  any  trouble." 

Every  negro  on  the  place  owns  his  own  mules  and 
wagons,  and  is  out  of  debt.  Nearly  every  family  has 
bought  or  is  buying  a  home  in  the  little  town  of  Le- 
land,  near  by,  some  of  which  are  comfortably  fur- 
nished.    They  are  all  prosperous  and  contented. 

"  How  do  you  do  it?  "  I  asked. 

"  The  secret,"  he  said,  "  is  to  treat  the  negro  well 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

and  give  him  a  chance.  I  have  found  that  a  negro, 
hke  a  white  man,  is  most  responsive  to  good  treat- 
ment. Even  a  dog  responds  to  kindness !  The  trouble 
is  that  most  planters  want  to  make  too  much  money 
out  of  the  negro ;  they  charge  him  too  much  rent ; 
they  make  too  large  profits  on  the  supplies  they  fur- 
nish. I  know  merchants  who  expect  a  return  of  fifty 
per  cent  on  supplies  alone.  The  best  negroes  I  have 
known  are  those  who  are  educated.  Negroes  need  more 
education  of  the  right  kind  —  not  less  —  and  it  will 
repay  us  well  if  we  give  it  to  them.  It  makes  better, 
not  worse,  workers.^ 

The  contrast  between  Major  Millsaps  and  Mr.  Stone 
seems  to  suggest  that  the  physical  nearness  of  a  fact  does 
not  guarantee  its  recognition.  John  Bunyan's  original 
muck-raker  was  oblivious  to  the  surrounding  glory  because 
his  eyes  were  fixed  upon  the  ground. 

The  charge  that  the  missionary  is  a  sentimentalist 
jmpHes  that  there  are  different  states  of  mind  in  which 
Need  of  the  ^^  approach  facts  ;  that  different  clues  may 
Man  with  the  be  brought  to  their  interpretation.  Prox- 
^^"®  imity  is  no   guaranty  of  knowledge  to  liim 

who  lacks  the  clue. 

Prof.  G.  N.  Carver  of  the  agricultural  department 
of  Tuskegee  is  one  of  the  most  competent  graduates  of 
a  leading  Northern  agricultural  college.  In  his  profes- 
sional capacity  he  is  often  called  upon  to  advise  Southern 
planters  as  to  the  development  of  their  farms.  Recently 
on  such  a  tour  of  inspection  the  Colonel  said,  "  Well,  Pro- 
fessor, what  should  we  do  with  such  soil.''  "  Sifting  a  little 
of  it  through  his  thin,  black  fingers.  Carver  replied,  "  You 
ought  n't  to  plow  this  farm ;    you  ought  to  can  it !     This 

*  Following  the  Color-Line,  p.  103. 
[42] 


wm 


xn 


CQ 


TEMPERING    THE    BODY    TOGETHER 

is  mineral  paint."  Now  the  Southerner  had  been  treading 
those  clods  for  fifty  years,  yet  he  knew  less  about  them 
than  a  negro  found  out  in  ten  minutes.  Fifty  years  more 
would  n't  have  added  wisdom.  A  glance  sufficed  the  ex- 
pert, the  man  with  the  clue. 

Now  there  are  experts  in  humanity.  Of  one  such  it  was 
said,  "  He  knew  what  was  in  man,"  Some  have  his  clue 
and  others  lack  it.  Being  geographically  next  to  a  human 
problem  does  not  help  the  latter.  Proximity  ought  to 
mean  spiritual  nearness.  The  missionary  must  indeed  es- 
tablish his  adequate  contact  with  the  facts,  and  can.  The 
unbeliever's  actual  difficulty  is  with  the  missionary  point 
of  view.  The  issue  essentially  involves  the  competency  of 
the  Christian  solution  of  human  problems.  In  having  his 
judgment  challenged  the  servant  merely  shares  the  lot  of 
his  Master. 


43] 


II.     THE    SOUTH    AS    MISSIONARY 
GROUND 

I.    SECTIONAL  vs.  NATIONAL  PROBLEMS 

THE  primary  responsibility  for  any  unassimilated 
group  within  the  nation  belongs  to  whatever  old 
and  established  American  population  happens  to 
The  Conges-  be  its  immediate  neighbor.  But  this  origi- 
tion  of  Incom-    nal  Americanism  varies  greatly  in  different 

pee     men-       sections,  both  as  to   its   material  and  insti- 

cans  in  the  ,  ' 

Least  Favored    tutional    resources    for    assimilation    and    in 

Sections  mental   attitude   toward   the   whole   problem. 

In  fact  the  greatest  masses  of  incomplete  Americans  are 

congested  in  those  sections  of  the  nation  wliich  in  these 

respects  are  least  favored. 

The  first  question  of  practical  policy  must  be,  Can  the 
geographical  neighbors  of  an  un-Americanized  group 
reasonably  assimilate  it.?  Have  they  enough  civilizing 
leaven  within  them  to  leaven  the  lump.''  Will  the  national 
need  be  equally  and  adequately  met  if  each  section  builds 
"  over  against  its  own  house  "  ?  The  answer  is  emphatic- 
ally, No.  Because  of  vastly  unequal  local  resources  the 
Americanizing  of  each  unassimilated  group  is  a  national 
problem,  and  all  sections  are  missionary  ground. 

The  East  and  North,  where  the  new  immigration  is 
chiefly  located,  have  largely  succeeded,  so  far  as  education 
is  concerned,  and  the  children  of  the  aliens  congested  in 
cities  there  are  better  provided  with  school  facilities  than 
the  children  of  Americans  throughout  the  country  at  large. 
Less  than  one  per  cent  of  their  children,  from  ten  to  four- 

[44] 


THE    SOUTH    AS    MISSIONARY    GROUND 

teen  years  of  age,  are  illiterate,  while  the  proportion  of 
such  illiterates  of  native  parentage  is  over  four  per  cent. 
Th  F  t  d  ^^^  ^^^^  urban  success  is  largely  counter- 
North  as  Mis-  balanced  by  the  rural  failure.  Away  from 
sionary  the  forcing  process  of  city  life  the  clan  spirit 

of  the  newcomer  yields  slowly,  and  the  substi- 
tution of  foreign  stock  for  American  country  popu- 
lation makes  the  maintenance  of  New  England's  rural 
institutions  increasingly  dependent  upon  money  and  leader- 
ship from  more  favored  communities.  Deserted  farms  and 
decaying  churches  create  an  acute  problem.  The  burden 
of  domestic  missionary  agencies  is  double  that  of  fifty 
years  ago.  Two  at  least  of  the  great  Christian  bodies 
have  recently  established  national  agencies  to  meet  the 
problem  of  immigration,  chiefly  congested  in  this  section. 
As  never  before  the  nation  must  help  the  East  and  North. 

The  rural  West  with  its  thin  population  owes  the  vigor 
and  tone  of  its  civilization  largely  to  the  frontier  mis- 
The  West  as  sionary  and  college  builder,  supported  by  re- 
Missionary  hgious  and  educational  Boards  drawing  their 
Ground  funds  from  the  East.  Even  if  they  had  not 
regarded  the  Indian  as  an  enemy,  the  struggling  pioneer 
population  could  not  have  done  for  him  what  the  paternal- 
ism of  the  government  and  the  zeal  of  the  evangelist  have 
rather  blunderingly  done.  The  Oriental  immigrant  bears 
an  almost  negligible  proportion  to  the  population  of  the 
Pacific  coast,  yet  money  is  every  year  sent  from  other 
sections  to  teach  him  to  read  the  primer  and  the  Bible. 
By  these  tokens  the  West  is  missionary  ground. 

In  the  South,  however,  is  massed  the  greatest  number 

of  incomplete   Americans,   with  the  fewest   resources    for 

making  them  fully  fit  for  citizenship.     In  the  geography 

of  assimilation  this   is  the  unfavored  section.      It  is   im- 

_ 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

possible  to  make  a  statistical  statement  as  to  the  backward 
whites  of  the  South,  but  there  were  more  illiterate  white 
Proportionate  children  there  in  1900  than  the  total  num- 
Magnitudeof  j^gj.  ^f  reservation  Indians  and  of  Orientals 
pendence  on  ^^  ^^^  United  States.  Add  the  fact  of  more 
the  Nation  illiterate     negroes     than     there    were    when 

the  Emancipation  Proclamation  was  penned!  This  meas- 
ures the  proportionate  magnitude  of  sectional  dependence 
upon  the  nation. 


II.    THE  SOUTH  AS  MISSIONARY  GROUND 

The  main  current  of  American  civilization  is  based  on 
the  assumption  that  a  common  school  education  is  the 
irreducible  minimum  of  preparation  for  worthy  citizen- 
ship. The  South  cannot  adequately  furnish  even  this  to 
vast  masses  of  her  people. 

The  twelve  proud  Southern  states  are  in  a  distinct  class 
with  New  Mexico,  Arizona,  and  what  was  Indian  Terri- 
S  til  Tll't-  ^o^J'  ^^  ^^^  bottom  of  the  illiteracy  list,  and 
eracyand  they   would   still   be   there   if  there   were  no 

Educational  negro  this  side  of  Africa.  Their  native  white 
ac  war  ness  iHi^^ej-acy  at  the  last  census  ranged  from 
8^/10  per  cent  to  I8V10  per  cent,  being  greatest  in  North 
Carolina,  where  every  sixth  white  child  is  illiterate.  The 
average  was  11  per  cent.  Negro  illiteracy  in  the  sixteen 
former  slave  states  stood  at  27  per  cent  in  Missouri,  then 
increased  from  41  per  cent  in  Arkansas  to  61  per  cent  in 
Louisiana,  or  51  per  cent  on  the  average.  In  the  best 
state  of  the  South  thirteen  men  out  of  every  one  hundred 
cannot  write  their  own  names ;  in  the  worst  state,  thirty- 
eight.    This  is  distinctly  a  sectional  phenomenon ;  it  marks 

the  South  off  from  the  rest  of  the  nation,  and  indeed  from 

_ 


THE    SOUTH    AS    MISSIONARY    GROUND 

all  the  more  enlightened  portions  of  Christendom.^  The 
Southern  child  goes  to  school  but  a  fraction  over  one-half 
as  many  days  per  year  as  the  Northern  child.  There  is 
no  compulsory  educational  system  except  in  Kentucky.^ 
The  enrolment  is  only  64  per  cent  of  the  school  population 
(nearly  10  per  cent  less  than  in  the  North),  and  that 
part  attends  10  per  cent  less  regularly  than  school  chil- 
dren do  in  the  more  advanced  section.  Male  teachers 
get  an  average  monthly  salary  of  $16  less  than  in  the 
North  and  female  teachers  $9  less ;  but  the  salary  is 
not  so  much  behind  as  the  Southern  teachers'  prepara- 
tion. The  number  of  college  or  normal  graduates 
among  them  is  painfully  small.  Eighty  per  cent  have 
had  only  a  common-school  education.  They  do  their 
work  with  one  dollar's  worth  of  buildings  and  equipment 
where  their  Northern  brethren  have  eight.  Tliis  means 
overcrowded  quarters,  consequently  relatively  poor 
teaching. 

The  North  spends  $254,000,000  annually  for  schools 
as  against  the  South's  $39,000,000 ;  or  $17.65  per  pupil 
against  the  South's  $4.54  per  pupil ;  or  $4.65  per  inhab- 
itant against  the  South's  $1,59.  The  extremes  are  Mas- 
sachusetts spending  $26.42  per  pupil  and  Alabama  but 
$2,39 ;  yet  the  latter  state,  of  its  poverty,  has  sometimes 
devoted  to  education  one-half  of  its  total  revenue.  No 
one  claims  that  the  Massachusetts  product  is  better  in 
proportion  to  the  money  spent  upon  it.  Yet  the  difference 
is  not  wholly  due  to  the  relative  wealth  of  the  sections, 
for,  taking  their  general  average,  the  South  spends  for 

*  The  statistical  comparisons  of  this  chapter  are  chiefly  based  on  the 
Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Education  for  1906. 

^  A  few  cities  elsewhere  have  compulsory  education  under  special  "local 
option  "  legislation. 

[47] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

education  twenty  cents  on  every  $100  of  taxable  property ; 
the  North  twenty-six  cents.^ 

Two  generations  ago  a  Scotch  family  separated  itself 
from  the  parent  clan  on  the  Cumberland  Plateau  in  Ten- 
rp.    rp  nessee  and  its   children  colonized  in   several 

Child  vs.  his  Northern  states,  including  Iowa.  This  state 
Iowa  Cousin  j^^s  a  population  slightly  larger  than  Ten- 
nessee and  of  about  the  same  relative  density,  but  has 
somewhat  fewer  children,  the  Southern  mountain  stock 
being  notoriously  prolific.  It  is  interesting  to  compare  the 
lot  of  the  cousins  who  grew  up  in  Iowa  with  those  who 
remained  in  the  Tennessee  cabins.  Ten  per  cent  more 
children  of  school  age  attend  school  in  Iowa  than  in  Ten- 
nessee. Teachers  number  29,650  in  Iowa  to  9189  in 
Tennessee;  schoolhouses  number  13,947  against  7354. 
Teachers'  salaries  average  nearly  one-third  more  in  Iowa, 
which  expends  $10,898,030  for  education  against  $1,751,- 
047  spent  by  Tennessee;  this  being  $4.49  per  inhabitant 
and  $16.43  for  each  child  of  school  age  in  Iowa  against 
$1.49  per  inhabitant  and  $4.52  per  child  of  school  age  in 
Tennessee.  In  other  words,  Iowa's  child  has  over  three 
times  as  many  teachers,  and  more  than  three  times  as 
much  money  spent  on  him  as  his  Tennessee  cousin.  He 
always  has  two  seats  in  school  to  the  other's  one ;  he  goes 
to  school  more  than  twice  as  many  days  each  year,  and 
his  state  gives  him  double  the  training  to  fit  him  for  citi- 
zenship which  the  other  receives  —  and  all  this  because  • 
of  the  accident  of  his  birth  north  rather  than  south  of 
Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  Yet  Tennessee  is  by  no  means 
the  least  progressive  state  in  the  South. 

*  See  Coon,  Twenty-five  Years'  Progress  of  Public  Education  in  North 
Carolina:  A  Comparative  Statistical  Study  of  School  Maintenance  in  the 
South,  etc.  National  Educational  Association,  Report  of  Committee  on 
Taxation,  1905. 

[48] 


THE    SOUTH    AS    MISSIONARY    GROUND 

These  facts  are  indisputable,  but  it  is  delicate  business 
to  say  why  they  exist.  The  most  thorough  diagnosis  is 
that  of  a  Southerner,  Professor  Rose,  of  the  University  of 
Tennessee.-^  He  enumerates  five  reasons  for  the  South's 
educational  backwardness.  Each  of  these  reasons  merits 
our  comment. 

1.  An  aristocratic  tradition  unfavorable  to  popu- 
lar education. 

2.  Poverty. 

3.  Excessive  individualism  which  sets  narrow  limits 
to  public  activity. 

4.  A  scattered  rural  population. 

5.  The  fact  of  the  two  races  necessitating  a  double 
school  system. 

We  noted  above  that  the  North  has  been  successful  in 
educating  the  foreigner  because  he  lives  chiefly  in  the 
The  South  cities  with  their  magnificent  school  systems. 

Five-sixths  Massachusetts  alone  had  in  1900  forty-seven 

^^^^  cities   with   above    10,000    inhabitants,    their 

combined  population  being  2,050,862.  The  nine  seaboard 
states  of  the  South  had  only  forty-nine  such  cities,  with 
a  population  of  but  1,525,564.  Five-sixths  of  the  Southern 
population  is  widely  scattered  over  mountain  and  plain, 
through  swamp  and  forest.  Such  a  sparse  population  is 
difficult  to  gather  into  schools.  This  makes  the  physical 
problem  of  education  serious,  and  helps  to  explain  the 
low  standing  of  the  section. 

Again,  the  South  is  poor.    Its  chief  resource  is  agricul- 
ture,   and    its    most    natural    comparison    is 
with  the  agricultural  portion  of  the  North, 
namely,  the  North  Central  states.     These  have  a  wealth 

*  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Education  for  1903,  vol.  i,  pp.  359  ff. 

4  [49] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

in  agricultural  land  and  buildings  of  nine  and  a  half  bil- 
lion dollars.  The  South  Central  states,  of  about  equal 
area,  have  a  similar  wealth  of  but  two  billion  dollars.  Iowa 
alone,  with  an  area  and  population  about  those  of  Ten- 
nessee, has  farm  values  of  over  two  billions,  or  more  than 
that  of  all  the  South  Central  states.  All  this  is  graphically 
revealed  on  maps  in  the  Special  Report  of  the  Census  Of- 
fice on  Wealth,  Debt,  and  Taxation.  These  show  that  no 
Southern  state  has  relatively  as  much  taxable  real  estate 
as  the  poorest  Northern  state,  and  that  the  taxable  real 
estate  per  family  is  two  and  a  half  times  as  large  in  the 
North  as  in  the  South.  Only  rarely  do  taxable  values  in 
the  South  exceed  $300  per  acre ;  while  in  the  North  they 
fall  below  this  only  here  and  there. 

The  scientific  study  of  national  resources  by  our  gov- 
ernment has  revealed  almost  unimaginable  theoretical  pos- 
TheSoiith's  sibilities  of  increased  production  of  wealth 
Amazing  Nat-  in  the  South,  as  in  every  other  part  of  the 
ural  Resources  continent.  Inflamed  by  this  vision  and  daz- 
zled by  the  marvelous  absolute  gains  of  their  section  in 
almost  every  line,  recent  Southern  champions  have  talked 
as  though  the  handicap  of  sectional  poverty  would  be 
quickly  overcome,  and  the  South  furnished  equally  with 
Americanizing  forces,  at  least  with  respect  to  its  white 
population.  As  President  Alderman  puts  it,  their  jubi- 
lation of  spirit  at  this  prospect  "  verges  on  something 
like  hilarity." 

Now  no  one  who  has  traveled  the  South  so  as  to  know 
its  land  and  people  intimately  can  doubt  that  many  of 
Will  the  South  ^^^^^e  dreams  will  come  true  along  with  many 
overtake  the  others  yet  undreamed.  Other  sections  have 
North?  their  dreams  of  wealth.     Probably  under  sci- 

entific objective  measurement  the  South  as  a  wealth  pro- 

[50] 


THE    SOUTH    AS    MISSIONARY    GROUND 

ducing  section  would  be  discovered  to  be  decidedly  inferior 
in  possibilities  to  an  equal  area  of  the  great  upper  Missis- 
sippi plains.  Materials  for  such  an  accurate  comparison 
do  not  yet  exist,  and  if  they  did  they  would  be  beside  the 
point ;  for  the  effective  wealth  of  any  land  depends  upon 
the  use  which  is  made  of  it.  We  have  to  consider,  therefore, 
whether,  on  other  grounds,  it  is  likely  that  the  relative 
gap  between  the  progress  of  the  sections  will  soon  be 
closed  and  the  South  cease  to  be  missionary  ground.  Of 
course  if  the  hare  lies  down  to  sleep  the  tortoise  will  over- 
take and  pass  him ;   but  is  the  hare  going  to  sleep  ? 

The  slightest  reflection  shows  that  proportionate  gains 
of  a  section  which  is  just  beginning  development  along 
RateofEduca-  new  lines  cannot  keep  up.  It  is  easy  to  im- 
tional  Progress  prove  on  little  or  nothing.  The  educational 
progress  of  the  South  looms  up  impressively  on  the  back- 
ground of  its  previous  lack.  The  same  progress  elsewhere 
would  almost  be  taken  for  granted.  Nor  are  the  propor- 
tionate gains  all  on  the  side  of  the  South.  It  is  not  in- 
creasing the  number  of  its  teachers  in  proportion  to  school 
population  as  fast  as  the  North  is.^  Now  effective  teach- 
ing means  individual  teaching.  The  crying  evil  of  the 
Southern  schools  is  that  they  are  overcrowded ;  there  are 
too  many  pupils  for  each  teacher.  Consequently  they  do 
not  progress  in  quahty  as  fast  as  in  numbers.  Again,  the 
common  school  was  long  ago  pretty  completely  established 
in  the  North.  This  section  already  had  universal  ele- 
mentary schools  and  could  not  possibly  show  great  pro- 
portionate gains  in  that  direction.  The  high  school,  on 
the  contrary,  as  the  "  people's  university "  has  almost 
limitless  possibilities  of  development  before  it  throughout 
the  nation,  but  the  proportion  of  high  school  enrolment 
'  Report  of  Commissioner  of  Education,  1906,  vol.  ii,  p.  696. 

[5l] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

is  increasing  faster  in  the  North  than  in  the  South.* 
Also  there  is  a  larger  proportion  of  boys  in  the  Northern 
high.  School,  and  a  smaller  proportion  of  its  pupils  are 
preparing  for  college.  These  are  indications  of  a  more 
democratic  character  of  the  secondary  public  education 
in  the  North.  It  is  not  only  developing  faster,  but  in  a 
more  promising  direction. 

Turning  now  to  the  probable  increase  of  wealth  — 
which,  is  the  ultimate  guaranty  of  education  —  we  find 
Probable  In-  that  the  farm  values  of  the  United  States, 
crease  of  according  to  the  estimate  of  the  Department 

Wealth  of  Agriculture,  increased   in   the  five  years 

from  1900  to  1905  over  six  billions  of  dollars.  Considerably 
over  half  of  this  gain  was  to  the  credit  of  the  North  Cen- 
tral states,  with  an  average  gain  in  value  of  $11.25  per 
acre.  About  one-fifth  of  the  increased  value  was  in  the 
South  Central  states,  with  an  average  increase  of  $4<.66 
per  acre.  Values  in  the  South  Atlantic  and  Western  states 
increased  about  equally.  The  increase  is  explained  as  fol- 
lows ;  "  Subj  ect  to  some  qualifications  the  general  principle 
is  that  the  land  itself  has  become  more  highly  capitalized 
by  a  larger  amount  of  net  profit  per  acre."  ^ 

Now  net  profit  per  acre  does  not  depend  upon  the  theo- 
retical fertility  of  the  soil,  but  upon  population,  markets, 

c  .,  .  .  transportation,  and  ag-riculture.  In  its  efforts 
southern  Agri-  . 

culture  caught  to  help  the  South  realize  the  best  from  its 
in  a  Vicious  resources,  the  agents  of  the  government  re- 
peatedly find  and  record  two  great  difficul- 
ties —  first,  the  character  of  the  people ;  second,  the  so- 
cial system  under  which  they  live.     Reports  in  the  Year 

»  Report  of  Commissioner  of  Education,  1902,  p.  1651.  Cf.  Ibid.,  1906, 
p.  507. 

'^  Year  Book,  Department  of  Agriculture,  1905,  p.  512. 

[52] 


THE    SOUTH    AS    MISSIONARY    GROUND 


Book  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture  for  1905,  while 
recording  much  progress,  complain  that  the  farmers  of 
the  South  are  conservative  and  the  available  agricultural 
labor  not  intelhgent  enough  to  use  improved  methods  of 
agriculture.  The  conclusion  is,  "  In  order  to  make  any 
radical  change  in  the  type  of  farming  which  prevails  over 
most  of  the  cotton  growing  section,  it  is  necessary  to  train 
the  available  labor  in  new  channels  and  to  give  it  a  sense 
of  responsibility  not  heretofore  necessary."  ^  This  does 
not  refer  solely  to  negro  labor,  for  the  reporter  for  Arkan- 
sas and  Louisiana  writes,  "White  labor  is  very  scarce 
and  much  of  it  is  looked  on  as  inferior  to  negro  labor."  ^ 
Moreover  most  of  the  Southern  farmers,  white  or  black, 
are  slaves  to  the  credit  system,  which  is  based  on  cotton 
as  the  traditional  "  money  crop  "  in  the  South.  Only  by 
agreeing  to  put  a  specified  number  of  acres  into  cotton 
can  a  tenant  get  his  "  rashuns  "  advanced  while  his  crop 
is  growing ;  accordingly  he  could  not  diversify  his  produce 
if  he  would.  Southern  agriculture  is  thus  caught  in  a 
vicious  circle.  To  get  out  at  all  it  must  educate  its  people 
to  better  methods,  but  the  money  necessary  to  pay  for 
that  education  cannot  be  had  till  the  net  profit  per  acre 
in  the  South  is  greatly  increased,  nor  can  the  gap  between 
the  Americanizing  forces  of  North  and  South  be  bridged 
till  this  profit  increases  very  much  faster  in  the  South  than 
in  the  North.     Of  this  there  is  no  immediate  prospect. 

Praises  of  the  "  South  of  to-morrow  "  invariably  read : 
When  all  our  land  is  brought  into  cultivation  and  our 
"The  South  of  agriculture  rationalized;  when  immigration 
To-morrow"  has  increased  our  numbers  and  given  us  a 
new  laboring  population ;   when  the  engineer  has  done  his 

>  Year  Book,  Department  of  Agriculture,  1905,  p.  194. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  211.  ___^ 

"""  753]  " 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

work  for  our  forest  and  swamp,  and  when  the  prejudice 
which  now  prevents  most  of  the  civihzed  world  from  re- 
garding the  South  as  a  desirable  home  is  overcome,  we 
shall  be  able  to  take  care  of  our  own  problems.  But  how 
soon  are  these  things  likely  to  happen?  The  government 
expert  sees  that  there  are  many  handicaps  to  the  speedy 
change  of  the  Southern  agricultural  system.  The  Charles- 
ton News  and  Courier  just  now  confesses,  "  There  appears 
to  be  no  present  prospect  of  direct  immigration  to  South 
Carolina  or  to  any  of  the  other  Southern  states."  The 
Italian  government  has  recently  diverted  all  its  immigra- 
tion from  the  state  of  Mississippi  to  save  them  from  what 
looks  to  it  like  peonage.  Of  the  need  of  an  Appalachian 
forest  reserve,  Professor  Brigham  wrote  in  1903: 

More  than  $10,000,000  was  .the  sum  of  flood  losses 
in  the  Appalachian  states  during  the  year  1901. 
With  the  abundant  rains,  wherever  a  slope  of  any 
steepness  is  cleared,  it  is  cropped  but  for  a  few  years, 
the  soil  is  washed  into  the  streams,  tillage  is  given  up, 
and  the  field  is  abandoned  to  ever-deepening  gullies. 
Meantime  the  rich  bottom  lands  below  are  either  exca- 
vated and  removed  bodily  by  the  torrents,  or  they  are 
deluged  with  five,  eight,  or  ten  feet  of  stony  waste, 
and  become  as  useless  as  a  gravelly  river-bed.  Ten 
years  of  delay  would  be  fatal.  The  single  states  can- 
not do  the  work.^ 

Now  five  of  these  years  of  grace  have  gone  by  and  The 
World's  Work  says,  "  The  problem  is  to  save  one  of  the 
most  valuable  and  attractive  parts  of  the  nation  —  liter- 
ally to  save  it;  for  it  is  going  to  waste  with  a  rapidity 
which  is  fairly  astounding."  ^     That  the  South  will  catch 

*  Geographical  Influences  in  American  History,  p.  285. 
«  The  World's  Work,  vol.  xvi,  p.  10300. 


THE    SOUTH    AS    MISSIONARY    GROUND 

up  is  possibly  one  of  the  may-bes,  but  it  is  certainly  still 
one  of  the  not-yets. 

Every  other  Southern  handicap  pales  before  the  fact 
that  a  third  of  its  population  are  negroes  but  forty  years 
The  Burden  of  out  of  slavery  and  one-half  of  them  illiterate, 
the  Negro  There  are   some  eight  millions   of  them,  in- 

creasing from  ISVio  per  cent  of  the  population  of  Ken- 
tucky to  58^10  per  cent  in  Mississippi ;  they  constitute 
a  majority  also  in  South  Carolina.  Though  declining  in 
numbers  relative  to  the  general  population  of  the  section 
they  increased  more  rapidly  in  the  last  decade  than  did 
the  whiteis  in  six  Southern  states.  Their  poverty  does 
not  permit  them  to  bear  a  proportionate  share  of  the  bur- 
dens of  taxation,  and  from  the  standpoint  of  the  South 
their  race  must  have  separate  educational  and  charitable 
institutions.  It  would  be  neither  safe  nor  just  to  leave 
to  so  handicapped  a  section  so  massive  a  national  problem. 

Excessive  individualism  and  the  aristocratic  tradition 
unfavorable  to  general  education  remain,  but  are  waning 
TheSouth's  factors  in  the  South's  attitude;  especially 
Half  Loaf  Un-  they  are  no  longer  politically  dominant.  The 
evenly  Divided  achievement  of  her  people  in  popularizing 
their  institutions  fairly  merits  President  Alderman's  words : 
"  They  have  developed  an  overwhelming  public  sentiment, 
with  the  social  and  political  agencies  necessary  to  sustain 
that  sentiment,  in  favor  of  the  education  of  all  the  people 
at  public  expense,  thus  making  a  social  system,  semifeudal 
in  nature,  a  democracy  in  social  usage,  as  well  as  in 
political  philosophy."  ^  This  is  fully  true  as  far  as  the 
white  population  is  concerned.  It  is  not  true  as  relates 
to  the  black  third  of  the  South's  children.  Judged  by 
deeds  the  prevailing  sentiment  favors  giving  them  an  in- 
1  The  World's  Work,  "The  Growing  South,"  vol.  xvl  p.  10375. 

[55] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

ferior  and  class  type  of  education,  unequally  supported 
by  public  resources.  Only  $2.21  is  spent  on  the  negro 
child  to  $4.92  for  the  white,  while  the  most  catholic  minds 
of  the  South  are  definitely  committed  to  the  prior  claim  of 
the  belated  white.  The  cry  is,  "  Let  the  children  first  be 
fed."  "  The  lot  of  the  Piedmont  and  Appalachian  white 
man  has  been  forgetfulness  and  neglect.  The  world  might 
as  well  understand  that  the  Southerner  is  done  with  this 
neglect  forever.  He  sees  that  the  redemption  of  his  com- 
munity lies  primarily  in  the  restoration  and  development 
of  the  white  population."  ^  Now  with  the  South's  present 
and  probable  resources  the  broadest  and  heartiest  democ- 
racy could  not  adequately  supply  the  needs  of  all  its 
people.  The  lack  of  such  democracy  means  the  uneven 
distribution  of  the  half  loaf,  which  is  all  the  South  has. 
The  plain  confession  of  this  situation  is  the  final  demon- 
stration that  the  South  is  missionary  ground. 

III.    THE  DIVISION  OF  LABOR  BETWEEN 
ASSIMILATING  FORCES 

To  insist  that  the  congestion  of  unassimilated  popula- 
tion in  that  section  makes  the  Americanizing  of  the  South 
a  national  problem  is  not  to  deny  that  the  big  end  of  the 
work  belongs  to  the  South.  In  the  division  of  labor  be- 
tween cooperating  forces.  Southern  agencies  and  resources 
have  the  greater  burden  and  glory.  To  the  very  limit  of 
his  strength  and  will,  the  belated  white  man  and  the  negro 
are  each  the  Southerner's  problem. 

To  be  specific,  there  are  five  cooperating  agencies  trying 
to  Americanize  the  South  —  three  of  which  are  Southern. 

'  The  World's  Work,  "  The  Growing  South,"  vol.  xvi,  p.  10378. 
[56] 


THE    SOUTH    AS    MISSIONARY    GROUND 

Primarily  the  responsibility  rests  with  the  state  as  the 
agency  of  democratic  society ;  and  no  amount  of  philan- 
Cooneratine  thropy  from  any  source  can  undo  the  wrong 
Agencies:  The  of  the  state's  failure  in  full  and  equal  jus- 
S*^*®  tice  to  its  citizens.     In  judging  the  success 

or  failure  of  the  Southern  states  one  must  avoid  two  errors. 
Much  fulsome  praise  has  been  lavished  on  them  for  be- 
latedly undertaking  what  in  the  eyes  of  civilization  is  the 
plain  and  self-evident  duty  of  the  state,  namely,  the  ele- 
mentary education  of  all  its  citizens.  But  equally  one 
must  not  fail  to  appreciate  the  grave  handicap  against 
which  the  Southern  people  have  struggled  even  so  far. 
They  have  "  had  the  political  patience  and  equipoise  not 
to  disturb  the  only  good  thing  decreed  to  them  by  a  carpet- 
bag government,  namely,  the  provision  for  popular  educa- 
tion placed  in  their  organic  law."  Out  of  this  they  have 
developed  a  general  school  system  "  fairly  complete  as  to 
its  machinery  and  methods."  They  are  now  spending 
forty-five  per  cent  of  all  their  public  revenue  upon  educa- 
tion; fifty-one  per  cent  of  negro  children  (a  trifle  more 
than  one-half!)  and  sixty-seven  per  cent  of  white  children 
are  in  school ;  and  this  without  state  compulsion.  Twenty 
per  cent  of  all  educational  spending  goes  to  the  negro. 
This  is  not  equitable,  for  he  comprises  thirty-two  per  cent 
of  the  school  population.  Yet  every  attempt  to  limit  the 
support  of  the  negro  school  to  what  the  negro  himself 
pays  in  direct  taxation  has  been  defeated,  and  the  South 
stands  theoretically  committed  to  elementary  education 
for  all  its  people. 

And  all  this  is  far  less  significant  than  the  fact  that  a 
TheEduca-  new  spirit  has  possessed  the  Southern  people, 
tional  Revival  The  building  of  their  schools  has  had  the 
character    of    a    popular    crusade,    and    constitutes    one 

[5r\ 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTEUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

of  the  most  notable  idealistic  movements  of  the  day.  No- 
where else  in  the  Union  have  recent  public  campaigns  been 
waged  and  governors  elected  on  educational  issues.  No- 
where has  the  vital  connection  so  quickly  been  grasped 
between  education  and  the  deeper  problems  of  social  re- 
form. In  brief,  educational  enthusiasm  and  consecration 
is  the  South's  peculiar  response  to  that  social  spirit  which 
is  the  most  vital  and  creative  movement  of  our  time.  There 
have  been  no  greater  heroes  in  American  history  than  the 
little  handful  of  educational  zealots  of  Southern  birth 
who  fought  their  section  single-handed  to  perpetuate  the 
carpetbagger's  common  school.  There  has  been  no  edu- 
cational philanthropy  half  so  praiseworthy  as  the  Southern 
taxpayer's  at  its  best.  The  whole  movement  merits  the 
most  exalted  eulogy. 

"For  that  the  leaders  took  the  lead  in  Israel, 
For  that  the  people  offered  themselves  willingly, 
Bless  ye  the  Lord." 

The  Southern  church  shares  the  recognized  conserva- 
tism of  ecclesiastical  institutions  and  has  an  additional 
Cooperating  measure  of  its  own.  It  is  not  to  discredit  its 
Agencies:  The  ardent  piety  to  say  that  it  has  shown  itself 
Church  j-j^g  least  adaptive  of  the  reconstructive  fac- 

tors of  its  section.  With  a  few  shining  exceptions,  leader- 
ship has  not  been  in  it. 

Before  the  war  education  was  chiefly  in  its  hands,  and 
afterward  the  intense  denominational  spirit  kept  alive  too 
many  poorly  supported  and  struggling  schools,  under  the 
burden  of  which  the  impoverished  sects  well-nigh  sank. 
Add  to  this  that  its  type  of  education  was  polite  and  aris- 
tocratic, not  popular  and  democratic,  and  it  is  clear  that 
little  outreach  could  be  expected  toward  the  less  privileged 
elements  of  society. 

[5S] 


THE    SOUTH    AS    MISSIONARY    GROUND 

As  regards  the  negro,  the  church  fell  more  deeply  the 
prey  to  mingled  resentment  and  despair  than  did  the 
secular  educational  forces.  From  the  standpoint  of  states- 
manship some  measure  of  education  for  him  was  under  the 
new  regime  clearly  inevitable;  but  the  church  did  not  rise 
even  to  that  plane.  It  could  not  bring  itself  to  teach  the 
recent  slave,  and  when  the  Northern  teachers  came  (seem- 
ingly in  the  spirit  of  a  new  army  of  invasion  bent  rather 
on  demonstrating  the  high  capacities  of  the  exceptional 
negro  than  on  preparing  the  mass  for  practical  and  pro- 
ductive citizenship),  Southern  organized  Christianity  in 
the  main  withdrew  from  the  task.  This  is  not  to  forget  nor 
minimize  millions  of  helpful  contacts  with  the  negro  in  his 
upward  struggle.  Much  personal  sympathy,  moral  sup- 
port, and  advice,  and  even  money  in  no  small  measure,  was 
given  him.  Especially  fruitful  have  been  the  traditions 
of  responsibility  carried  over  by  those  Southern  churches 
which  had  a  large  colored  membership  before  the  war  — 
notably  the  Southern  Presbyterian,  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal, South,  and  the  Episcopal.  Many  faithful  ministers 
have  continued  to  preach  to  black  Christians.  But  con- 
fessed, direct,  and  systematic  efforts  for  the  education 
and  uplift  of  negroes  have  been  largely  lacking.  The 
state  has  found  less  embarrassment,  for  Its  operations 
have  been  official  and  its  contacts  have  not  Involved  any 
social  implications.  But  evangehzation  and  education  at 
first  hand  clearly  involve  a  degree  of  personal  Christian 
fellowship  which  the  Southern  church  in  the  main  has 
hitherto  been  unwilling  to  grant.  It  has  therefore  with- 
held its  hand  from  the  work,  partly  from  pique  that  the 
Northerner  had  undertaken  it  from  what  was  Interpreted 
as  a  sectional  standpoint,  and  partly  because  It  was  un- 
willing to  do  it  from  its  own  standpoint.     This  Is  truth 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

in  the  large  as  the  broadest  Southern  churchmen  now  con- 
fess. Thus  Rev.  Charles  E.  Bowman,  d.d.,  of  Georgia, 
recently  said :  "  Assistance  in  the  education  of  the  negro 
has  been  practically  monopolized  by  boards,  societies, 
churches,  and  philanthropists  of  the  North,  and  we  have 
been  disposed  to  let  them  have  it,  excusing  ourselves  with 
the  claim  that  more  is  being  done  for  the  negro  than  for 
the  poor  white  children  of  the  South,  and  that  we  have 
more  than  we  can  do  to  look  after  our  own."  ^  There  have 
been  exceptions,  and  just  now  indications  multiply  of  the 
coming  of  a  better  mind. 

In  admitting  that  the  Americanizing  of  the  South  is 
primarily  the  Southerner's  problem  one  must  not  forget 
Cooperatinff  ^^^  Southerner  most  deeply  concerned ; 
Agencies:  the  namely,  the  negro  himself.  The  rise  of  this 
JNegro  Himself  unprivileged  race  to  bring  salvation  with  its 
own  arm  is  an  unparalleled  phenomenon.  Beyond  all  its 
helpers  it  has  helped  itself.  It  has  expended  nearly  ten 
million  dollars  for  education  besides  its  share  of  taxation. 
It  has  multiplied  schools  almost  beyond  number.  The 
result  in  many  details  show  great  crudity  and  inexperi- 
ence, though  in  inadequacy  and  wastefulness  the  educa- 
tional policy  of  the  negro  churches  is  scarcely  worse  than 
that  of  sectarian  education  throughout  the  country  at 
large.  They  have  simply  been  imitating  their  supposed 
superiors.  Both  in  bulk  and  in  worthy  accomplishment 
the  negro's  successes  in  elevating  himself  rise  to  colossal 
dimensions.  If  the  South  is  to  be  praised  for  rapid  prog- 
ress in  public  education,  how  much  more  the  negro  for  the 
zeal  which  has  built  his  hundreds  of  schools !    In  the  divi- 


*  Annual  Report  of  the  Board  of  Education  for  the  M.  E.  Church,  South, 
1907,  p.  128. 


THE    SOUTH    AS    MISSIONARY    GROUND 

sion  of  labor  betAveen  cooperating  forces  he  bears  not  the 
least  honorable  and  responsible  part. 

Long  before  either  of  the  Southern  forces  was  ready  or 
able  to  do  a  dominant  or  central  work  for  the  redemption 
Cooperating  of  the  South,  there  had  been  in  the  field  a 
Agencies:  group  of  great  nationaUzing  agencies  which 

Christian  originated  the  ideal  of  the  Americanizing  of 

Philanthropy  all  Americans  and  set  a  standard  for  all  suc- 
ceeding efforts  for  its  reaHzation.  The  relative  place  of 
their  work  to-day  is  smaller,  but  their  absolute  burden  is 
greater;  for,  all  told,  the  assimilating  resources  have  not 
increased  as  fast  as  unassimilated  population,  especially 
in  view  of  the  sterner  demands  of  life  in  this  age  of  rapid 
social  transitions.  The  money  and  personality  which  they 
are  now  putting  into  the  situation  were  never  more  essen- 
tial. Yet,  after  all,  their  chief  contribution  has  been,  and 
is,  the  maintenance  of  a  national  view-point.  It  has  been 
their  function  to  correct  the  emphasis  of  those  who  have 
attacked  the  problem  with  local  prejudice,  so  that  the 
general  outcome  should  be  balanced.  They  have  not  them- 
selves been  free  from  all  provincialism  of  method,  but  they 
have  viewed  national  problems  steadily  and  viewed  them 
as  a  whole.    This  is  the  spirit  of  prophecy. 

The  prophet  has  a  strange  and  moving  role  in  human 
history.  From  his  far  hilltop  he  looks  down  on  the  march- 
ing and  countermarching  of  nations.  He  does  not  im- 
mediately belong  to  their  problem,  and  its  outcome  seems 
none  of  his  business.  Yet  somehow  he  turns  out  to  have  a 
better  grasp  of  the  situation  than  any  participant  has. 
He  has  a  more  unhindered  access  to  the  deepest  sources 
of  information  than  the  man  who  has  a  personal  in- 
terest in  the  fray.  The  strange  outcome  is  that  "  whom 
he  curses  is  cursed  and  whom  he  blesses  is  blest."     He 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

thinks  that  his  judgment  of  the  tendencies  of  his  day  is 
based  upon  insight  into  the  purposes  of  God. 

Our  nation  has  had  such  men,  who  have  definitely  at- 
tempted to  reaHze  the  divine  purpose  in  America.  Out  of 
the  strange  human  stuff  providentially  gathered  they  have 
tried  to  temper  the  national  body  together  as  it  pleases 
God.  Sometimes  the  nationalizing  agencies  used  by  such 
prophetic  hearts  have  disguised  their  true  function  by 
callins;  themselves  denominational  Boards.  Sometimes  the 
nominal  character  of  these  Boards  has  swamped  their 
higher  function ;  but  at  the  worst  they  comprise  the 
most  single-hearted  and  Christian  factor  which  has  entered 
into  the  problem.  They  have  been  essentially  popular 
agencies,  administering  chiefly  the  genuine  and  unosten- 
tatious philanthropy  of  the  "  common  folk  "  of  the  North. 

The  American  Missionary  Association  is  typical  of  them. 
Founded  in  1846,  it  gathered  up  several  local  organiza- 
The  American  ^^ons  which  had  a  common  missionary  impulse 
Missionary  toward  less  privileged  peoples.     It  had  other 

Association  work  for  the  pioneer  in  the  South  and  West ; 
for  the  Indian  tribes,  then  counted  as  foreign ;  for  recently 
emancipated  slaves  in  Jamaica  and  negro  refugees  in 
Canada,  and  for  the  heathen  in  half  a  dozen  foreign  lands. 
This  shows  the  scope  of  the  original  idea  as  not  sectional 
nor  even  exclusively  national.  Gradually,  however,  its 
foreign  work  was  assigned  to  more  specialized  agencies, 
and  the  outcome  of  the  Civil  War  gave  the  Association  its 
chief  burden  in  the  persons  of  four  and  a  half  million  of 
freedmen.  Fraternal  cooperation  in  the  uplift  of  their 
nine  million  descendants  still  remains  its  first  concern  as 
also  incomparably  the  greatest  assimilating  task  before 
the  nation.  This  Association  discovered  the  Southern 
Highlander  as  a  distinct  type  demanding  a  special  Amer- 


A.  F.  Beaui).  D.D. 
Corresponding  Secretary  American  Missionary  Association,  1887-1903 


THE    SOUTH    AS    MISSIONARY    GROUND 

icanizing  effort.  Its  essential  national  character  is  re- 
vealed by  its  successive  assumptions  of  responsibility  for 
new  and  unexpected  peoples  which  have  come  to  us  by  con- 
quest or  annexation.  Its  present  work  includes  an  evan- 
gelizing and  educating  ministry  to  all  the  non-European 
and  mixed  groups  under  our  flag,  and  by  a  happy  excep- 
tion which  proves  the  rule,  to  the  largest  group  of  unas- 
similated  white  population,  the  mountaineer  of  the  South- 
ern Appalachians.  Thus  it  tries  to  perform  its  office 
in  the  midst  of  its  brethren  in  a  spirit  of  confessed 
cooperation. 

A  tragic  misunderstanding,  the  fruit  of  decades  of  sec- 
tional conflict,  embittered  by  war  and  made  doubly  diffi- 
Cooperating  ^ult  by  the  blunders  of  Reconstruction,  long 
Agencies:  sundered  the  forces  of  uplift  in  the  South. 

JomtEcIuca-  rpj^^  ^^^  sections  were  temporarily  incapable 
North  and  of   ^   mutual    trust,    while    the    conservative 

South  South,   represented  by   the   church,   did   not 

appreciate  the  ideals  of  the  more  advanced  educators. 
The  negro  had  aspirations  sundering  him  even  from  his 
would-be  helpers.  It  is  a  thrilling  story  how  they  all  came 
together  at  last;  how  the  carpetbag  governments  laid  the 
foundation  of  popular  education ;  how  in  every  state  there 
arose  a  little  handful  of  educational  zealots  of  Southern 
birth  who  fought  incredibly  lonely,  heroic  fights  to  make 
good,  after  so  long,  Jefferson's  \asion  of  a  common  school ; 
how  before,  and  especially  after  the  disbanding  of  the 
Freedman's  Bureau,  Northern  Christian  philanthropy 
undertook  the  education  of  the  negro  and  later  of  the 
poor  white;  how  its  teachers  toiled  in  fearful  isolation, 
often  ostracized,  slowly  learning  the  true  needs  of  both 
races  as  only  time  can  teach  them;  how  the  joint  admin- 
istration by  high-minded  men  of  North  and  South,  of  the 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

splendid  benefactions  of  George  Peabody  and  others 
taught  new  possibiHties  of  cooperation  and  raised  philan- 
thropy to  the  plane  of  constructive  statesmanship ;  how 
finally  it  dawned  on  men  that  there  was  a  great  unity  of 
aim  underneath  all  the  separate  agencies,  and  they  drew 
together  in  a  practical  cooperation  and  good  understand- 
ing which  is  the  dominant  character  of  Southern  educa- 
tional effort  to-day. 

The  chief  platform  on  which  this  good  understanding 
has  been  reached  is  the  Conference  for  Education  in  the 
Conference  for  South,  organized  in  1898.  Here  representa- 
Educationin  tives  of  all  interests  met  through  a  series  of 
the  South  years,  face  to  face,  and  worked  out  a  common 

policy.  To  an  unprecedented  degree  it  appealed  to  a 
varied  constituency,  to  politicians,  to  the  press,  to  women's 
clubs,  and  somewhat  to  the  clergy,  as  well  as  to  the  philan- 
thropist and  the  professional  educator. 

It  initiated  a  great  and  successful  educational  cam- 
paign in  behalf  of  education  throughout  the  entire  section. 
Agreement  on  As  a  result  of  such  cooperative  effort  a  num- 
Ideals  ber  of  ideals  may  be  counted  as  established 

in  the  South.  First,  the  development  of  popular  education 
as  a  function  of  a  democratic  state  is  at  once  the  highest 
philanthropy  and  the  simplest  justice.  Agitation  and 
organization  must  not  cease  until  this  is  fully  accom- 
plished throughout  the  section.  To  encourage  this  move- 
ment is  the  finest  exercise  of  the  nationalizing  spirit.  Its 
success  is  the  basis  for  all  other  ministries  to  the  unpriv- 
ileged classes.  On  the  other  hand,  the  clear  lack  of  suffi- 
cient resources  in  the  South  as  a  section,  and  the  inevi- 
table gaps  in  its  educational  program,  must  be  met  by  help 
from  the  more  favored  sections  operating  through  nation- 
alizing agencies,  the  cooperative  spirit  of  whose  work  is 

[64] 


THE    SOUTH    AS    MISSIONARY    GROUND 

to  be  appreciated  by  all.  The  disorganization  and  waste 
of  the  past  must  cease.  The  well-meaning  competition  of 
half-starved  institutions,  ill-advised  duplication  of  agen- 
cies, and  congestion  of  unnecessary  schools,  especially  for 
negroes  (as  in  Atlanta),  must  give  way  to  the  great  prin- 
ciples of  order  and  efficiency.  Benevolence  must  study 
each  institution  which  appeals  for  aid ;  whether  it  is  wisely 
founded,  strategically  located,  well  conducted.  The  auxil- 
iary forces  of  Northern  philanthropy  must  have  a  special 
strategy  so  as  not  to  complicate  injuriously  the  move- 
ment of  the  whole.  Most  of  all,  perhaps,  the  denomina- 
tional education  of  the  Southern  sects  needs  readjusting 
to  an  era  of  dominant  public  education.  This  requires  a 
self-denying  merging  or  abandonment  of  many  institu- 
tions, preliminary  to  the  strategic  development  of  all  the 
others.  The  educational  policy  of  the  negro  churches, 
made  aggressive  by  race  consciousness  and  ecclesiastical 
pride,  especially  needs  tempering  by  a  sense  of  the  whole 
situation  and  expert  direction.  Such  economizing  of  re- 
sources through  the  application  of  the  "  trust  "  idea  to 
Southern  education  has  recently  been  attempted  by  the 
General  Educational  Board,  administering  Mr.  Rocke- 
feller's endowments,  and  by  affiliated  agencies.  These  are 
by  no  means  likely  to  be  the  controlling  force  of  the 
future:  neither  the  Southern  states,  the  negro  schools, 
nor  the  missionary  Boards  will  submit  to  it.  Yet  their 
moral  influence  will  be  wide,  and  the  lesson  they  empha- 
size is  in  hopeful  process  of  being  learned  by  all  the  educa- 
tional forces  concerned.  A  well-understood  division  of 
labor  is  thus  being  achieved.  All  agencies  are  submitting 
to  the  test  of  efficiency.  There  are  backward  eddies,  but 
this  is  the  direction  of  the  main  current. 


65] 


III.     THE   SIFTING  OF  THE   SOUTH 

I.  THE  TWO  SOUTHS  AND  THE  TWO  SOUTHERNERS 

THE  most  outstanding  fact  about  the  South  is 
that  there  are  two  Souths,  lowland  and  highland. 
Once  there  was  no  South  except  the  mountains. 
Beginning  with  New  Jerse}'^,  the  Atlantic  seaboard  south 
to  Florida,   the   lower   half   of  the   Gulf   states,   and   the 

^  , .  Mississippi    Valley    as     far    north    as    the 

Geographic  ^^    i       /-.i  • 

Separation  of      mouth  of  the  Ohio,  were   at   the  bottom   oi 

theSouth's  the  sea.     The  waters  lapped  the  feet  of  the 

wo  ro  ems  mountains  on  the  west,  covering  what  is  now 
the  Blue  Grass  regions  of  Kentucky.  This  most  ancient 
highland  South  —  the  South  of  Lincoln  and  Judge  Hargis 
—  looked  out  upon  the  ocean.  Its  most  southern  point 
was  what  is  now  central  Alabama.  Later  the  characteris- 
tic lowland  South  —  the  South  of  Jefferson  Davis  and  of 
Lee  —  rose  out  of  the  waters  as  a  level  coastal  plain, 
through  which  the  broad  wedge  of  the  mountains  thrust  its 
rough  fist  far  down  through  soft  stretches  of  recent  sea 
bottom  toward  the  present  waters  of  the  Gulf.  In  these 
two  strikingly  distinct  geographic  provinces  the  two  great 
human  problems  of  the  South  are  congested.  The  prob- 
lem of  the  belated  white  man  is  chiefly  the  problem  of  the 
highlands ;  the  problem  of  the  negro  is  almost  exclusively 
one  of  the  plains. 

From  their  first  settlement  these  two  sections  of  the 
South  have  differed  in  temper  and  been  antagonistic  in 
Highland  vs.  politics.  Historically  the  earliest  associa- 
Lowland:  tions   of  the   uplands   were  with  the   North- 

Population  The  movement  of  population  was  southwest 

rather  than  directly  west.     The  bulk  of  their  immigration, 

[66] 


THE    SIFTING    OF    THE    SOUTH 


Scotch-Irish  by  birth,  entered  by  way  of  Philadelphia  and 
Baltimore,  and  worked  down  the  great  Appalachian  valley 
rather  than  across  the  coastal  plain  from  Atlantic  ports. 

Cut  off  from  tide-water  not  only  by  the  falls  of  the 
rivers  —  the  head  of  navigation  —  but  also  by  a 
parallel  strip  of  pine  barrens  through  much  of  its 
length,  this  region  was  in  many  respects  a  projection 
of  the  Pennsylvania  type  into  the  very  midst  of  the 
South.  It  was  settled  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century  largely  by  migration  from  Pennsylvania  of 
Scotch-Irish,  Germans,  and  English  pioneers,  having 
Kttle  contact  with,  or  resemblance  at  first  to,  the  sea- 
board life,  either  economically,  politically,  or  socially. 
It  was  the  first  distinctively  western  region,  non- 
slaveholding,  grain  and  cattle  raising,  a  land  of  dis- 
senting sects,  of  primitive  democratic  conditions,  re- 
mote from  the  coast,  and  finding  the  connection  with 
Baltimore,  Philadelphia,  and  the  Pennsylvania  valley, 
both  in  spiritual  and  economic  life,  more  intimate  than 
with  the  tide-waters  of  Maryland,  Virginia,  North 
Carolina,  and  South  Carolina,  within  whose  boundary 
lines  it  chiefly  lay.-*- 

The  diverse  civilization  of  mountain  and  plain  thus  root 
in  their  different  origins. 

The  first  habitat  of  the  upland  Southerner  was  the  Appa- 
lachian foot-hills  rather  than  the  true  mountains.  Later 
The  Struggle  ^^  ^^^  driven  back  into  the  mountains  as  a 
for  the  result  of  the  unsuccessful  struggle,  political 

Piedmont  g^^^     economic,     with     the     lowlands.      This 

struggle  of  up-country  against  tide-water  is  a  significant 
clue  of  the  earlier  history  of  the  six  southern  states  crossed 

*  Turner,  "Is  Sectionalism  in  America  Dying  Away?"  American 
Journal  of  Sociology,  vol.  xiii,  p.  665. 

[671 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

by  the  Piedmont  Belt.  "  In  every  one  the  tide-water  min- 
ority area,  where  wealth  and  slaves  preponderated,  ruled 
the  more  populous  primitive  interior  counties  by  apportion- 
ment of  the  legislatures  so  as  to  secure  the  effective  major- 
ity of  the  representatives.  Unjustly  taxed,  deprived  of 
due  participation  in  government,  their  rights  neglected, 
they  protested,  vainly  for  the  most  part,  in  each  of  these 
colonies  and  states."  ^  Central  North  CaroUna,  for  ex- 
ample, previous  to  1830,  had  a  magnificent  normal  devel- 
opment as  a  region  of  small  farms  and  diverse  domestic 
industries  supporting  a  prosperous  yeomanry  of  Scotch- 
Irish,  German,  and  Quaker  descent.  The  plantation  sys- 
tem crept  up  into  it  against  the  economic  grain.  The  slave- 
holders wanted  to  rule  the  Piedmont  more  than  they  wanted 
to  farm  it.  The  uplands  vainly  resisted  with  an  intense 
antislavery  agitation.  When  finally  they  were  over- 
come, their  people  emigrated  wholesale,  especially  between 
1830  and  1840,  into  the  mountains  and  beyond.  "  During 
that  decade  the  white  population  of  the  state  increased 
only  2.54  per  cent  compared  with  12.79  per  cent  for  the 
preceding  period."  ^  Thus  the  most  virile  and  democratic 
part  of  the  population  was  dispossessed  of  the  better  land 
and  forced  back  into  the  poor  and  thinly  populated  moun- 
tain region. 

As  a  natural  barrier  the  Southern  Appalachians  pre- 
sented no  such  absolute  physical  diflficulty  as  the  Rocky 
The  Fixing  of  Mountains,  which  civilization  so  triumphantly 
the  Mountain  crossed  later.  But  their  great  width  —  some 
TyP®  three    hundred    miles  —  and    the    unbroken 

length  of  their  parallel  ranges,  proved  too  much  for  the 

'  Turner,  "Is  Sectionalism  in  America  Dying  Away  ?  "  American  Journal 
of  Sociology,  vol.  xiii,  p.  666. 

2  Thompson,  From  Cotton  Field  to  Cotton  Mill,  p.  30. 

[68] 


THE    SIFTING    OF    THE    SOUTH 


slight  resources  of  the  earlier  pioneer.  Their  coves  and 
narrow  valleys  caught  him,  and  still  hold  his  children  in 
the  civilization  of  a  hundred  years  ago.  Meanwhile  the 
militant  slaveholding  South  followed  the  coastal  plains, 
added  the  new  empire  of  the  Southwest  to  its  domain,  and 
developed  the  peculiar  mental  and  social  aggressiveness 
which  hurried  the  two  great  sections  of  the  nation  toward 
irrepressible  conflict.  But  it  is  never  to  be  forgotten  that 
the  first  conflict  of  the  South  was  within  itself,  and  that 
the  North  fought  with  and  for  a  consistent  Southern 
minority. 

The  crisis  of  war  revealed  still  further  the  dominance  of 
physiographic  over  political  divisions.  The  lowlander 
Highland  vs.  stuck  to  his  state  against  the  nation ;  the 
Lowland:  the  mountaineer  clung  to  his  region  against  his 
Civil  War  state.      West    Virginia    was    rent    from    the 

mother  state  and  became  a  separate  commonwealth.  North 
Carolina  slowly  and  reluctantly  seceded.  Kentucky, 
though  south  of  the  Ohio,  remained  within  the  Union.  Ten- 
nessee sent  a  larger  proportion  of  soldiers  into  the  Federal 
armies  than  any  Union  state.  Even  in  Alabama  the  com- 
paratively slight  but  rough  upland  region  remained  per- 
sistently Unionist,  and  contributed  its  regiments  to  the 
Northern  cause.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  moun- 
tains held  the  balance  of  power  and  turned  the  scales  of 
war.  Throughout  the  awful  struggle  the  bitterest  ani- 
mosity and  cruelest  deeds  were  between  Southerner  and 
Southerner,  —  mountaineer  and  lowlander,  —  in  the  border 
states. 

After  the  war  the  mountains  remained  stubbornly  Re- 
pubhcan  in  politics.  After  1876  the  negro  vote  disap- 
peared and  the  South  became  seemingly  solid.  Yet 
through  all  political  fluctuations  the  mountains  stand  fixed 


[69] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

and  maintain  the  "  geographical  distribution  of  politics."  ^ 
Except  in  national  politics  the  South  has  never  been  solid, 
Highland  vs.  ^^^  there  only  by  the  arbitrary  inclusion 
Lowland:  within  common  state  bounds  of  radically  di- 

Politics  verse  populations.    I  am  often  asked  by  curi- 

ous Northern  friends  if  I  am  not  a  Democrat  in  the  South. 
My  answer  is  that  I  have  lived  in  the  South  for  eight  years, 
and  in  two  different  states,  but  always  in  a  Republican 
county  and  in  a  congressional  district  which  has  been  Re- 
publican most  of  the  time  since  the  war.  State  boundaries 
disregard  physiographic  barriers ;  and  under  our  Federal 
system  it  is  the  fate  of  persistent  minorities  to  be  forgotten 
in  national  politics. 

Thus  from  the  beginning  to  the  present  time  the  two 
Souths  have  sifted  their  peoples.  There  are  and  always 
have  been  two  Southerners,  —  each  a  splendid  and  appeal- 
ing type.  Their  characters  have  been  molded  by  the  inter- 
play of  influences  from  the  land  and  the  social  institutions 
built  upon  it.  The  land  originated,  the  institutions  accel- 
erated, their  characteristic  differences.  Then  the  land 
and  the  institutions  together  fixed  the  respective  types  of 
mountain-men  and  lowlander.  This  distinction  is  the  first 
clue  to  the  understanding  of  the  South. 

II.    THE  VARIED  SOUTH 

By  all  natural  rights  the  region  of  our  country  which 
ought  to  show  sectional  solidity  in  political  opinion  and 
The  Land  of  typical  civilization  is  that  heart  of  the  North, 
Contrast  the  thousand  miles  of  plains  which  continue 

the  gentle  westward  slope  of  the  Alleghany  plateau,  across 

*  See  Plates  II  and  III  (1,  2,  and  3)  in  Turner,  "Is  Sectionalism  in 
America  Dying  Away  ?"  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  vol.  xiii,  pp.  664  ff. 

[70] 


THE    SIFTING    OF    THE    SOUTH 


the  lake  and  p.rairie  region,  to  where  the  great  plains  meet 
the  bases  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  The  ice-sheet  anciently 
ground  the  soil  of  most  of  this  region  into  virtual  homo- 
geneity. To-day  it  dominates  the  nation  with  that  same- 
ness of  life  which  Mr.  Bryce  thinks  characteristic  of 
America.  The  South,  on  the  contrary,  exhibits  a  greater 
range  of  physical  diversity  than  any  other  part  of  our 
domain.  It  is  the  geographically  predestined  land  of 
contrasts.  Not  only  does  it  present  the  great  contrasts  of 
mountain  and' plain,  but  within  each  of  these  characteristic 
areas  it  shows  a  most  intricate  variety  —  in  the  form  and 
contouB  of  the  land,  the  quality  and  composition  of  the 
soil,  and  the  consequent  economic  adaptations  of  its  minor 
areas.  This  great  variety  of  natural  wealth  means  in  the 
long  run  equal  variety  in  human  work  and  consequent 
diversity  in  population. 

Illustrations  of  these  physical  varieties  are  endless.  Our 
national  Department  of  Agriculture  recognizes  thirteen 
Physiographic  physiographic  belts  between  the  Atlantic  and 
and  Soil  the  great  plains.     Five  of  these  are  crossed 

Provinces  -j^  going  westward  from  New  York,  eleven  in 

going  westward  from  Charleston.  The  soil-augur  and 
laboratory  tell  a  like  tale.  Of  the  nine  soil  provinces  west 
of  the  great  plains  discriminated  by  the  Soil  Survey,  six 
are  almost  wholly  within  the  South,  while  on  the  contrary 
nine-tenths  of  the  area  north-  of  the  Ohio  and  Missouri 
rivers  belongs  to  a  single  soil  province.  So  far  as  the 
soils  of  the  North  and  South  have  been  locally  explored 
the  results  show  greater  unevenness  of  productivity  in  the 
characteristic  Southern  types.  Detailed  study  of  the  wide- 
spread "  Cotton  Kingdom  "  discovers,  that  it  ought  to  be 
peculiarly  a  realm*  of  diversified  agriculture. 

Again,  the  broad  coastal  plain  from  Virginia  to  Missis- 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

sippi  shows  a  virtually  continuous  division  into  parallel 
belts.  The  pine  levels  merge  into  the  pine  hills  and  an 
Black  and  infertile  ridge  of  sand  hills  interposes  itself, 

White  "Belts"  for  much  of  the  distance,  between  them  and 
the  Piedmont.  The  influences  of  these  minor  physiographic 
regions  are  as  clear  and  permanent  as  those  of  the  moun- 
tains and  lowlands  themselves.  Indeed  the  distribution  of 
population  is  minutely  determined  by  them.  In  every  state 
the  negroes  are  found  mostly  in  the  pine  hills  between 
the  plains  and  the  Piedmont.  They  also  hold  the  narrow 
fringe  of  alluvial  coast  lands  and  the  alluvial  regions  of 
the  lower  Mississippi  valley.^  Thus  throughout  its  length 
the  South  is  crossed  by  alternate  population-belts  of 
black  and  white.  The  familiar  term  "  black  belt  "  applied 
first  to  the  black-colored  soil  of  the  landward  portion  of 
the  "  belted  coastal  plain  "  which  crosses  the  center  of 
Alabama.  It  was  only  secondarily  applied  to  the  massing 
of  the  negro  population  in  this  and  similar  regions  of  the 
South.  In  general  it  is  the  low-lying,  moist  and  rich  areas 
which  are  overwhelmingly  colored,  while  the  whites  tend 
to  the  higher,  dryer,  and  less  fertile  lands.  These  belts  of 
population  constitute  a  natural  geographical  basis  for 
the  further  segregation  of  the  races  which  is  going  on 
under  social  impetus. 

Now  there  have  been  from  the  beginning  throughout  the 
South  persistent  differences  of  population,  whether  white 
jy-a  ■        or  black,  due  to  these  diverse  local  environ- 

Population  due    ments ;   but  only  intimate  study  of  local  his- 

to  Local  tory,    state   by    state,    reveals    them.      Older 

Environment        j.  •  £  o      i.\,  ui  i         i. 

discussions  or  Southern  problems  almost  en- 
tirely ignore  them,  and  only  recently  has  the  work  of  a 
notable  group  of  Southern  state  historians  enabled  us  to 

'  Kelsey,  The  Negro  Farmer,  pp.  14,  15. 
_ 


THE    SIFTING    OF    THE    SOUTH 


trace  their  influence.^  The  general  truth  is  that  the  South 
has  included  many  peculiar  areas  each  with  its  peculiar 
people.  This  is  interestingly  illustrated  in  the  difficulty 
which  the  American*  Missionary  Association  finds  in  classi- 
fying some  of  its  institutions.  In  north  central  Alabama, 
for  example,  is  an  institution  usually  reckoned  as  a 
"  mountain  school."  It  is  at  the  center  of  a  group  of 
Piedmont  counties  having  less  than  one  per  cent  of  negro 
population,  yet  surrounded  by  others  in  which  the  negro 
population  ranges  from  twenty-five  to  fifty  per  cent.  This 
white  island  in  the  midst  of  a  colored  ocean  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  Tennessee  River  cuts  through  the  mountains 
at  Chattanooga  and  isolates  the  lower  end  of  the  Piedmont 
region  in  the  midst  of  surrounding  lowlands.  Its  broken 
sand  ridges  are  not  too  rough  for  the  raising  of  cotton, 
which  is  the  chief  product.  Yet  there  is  scarcely  a  negro 
in  the  country.  Many  of  the  natives  have  never  seen  one. 
The  driver  who  carries  one  over  to  the  school  comes  from 
the  "  Valley."  He  is  outraged  to  see  white  women  and 
children  picking  cotton ;  this  is  "  niggers'  "  work.  Thus 
the  lowlander.does  not  recognize  cotton  without  the  negro. 
The  mountaineer  would  not  recognize  cotton  at  all.  In 
brief,  the  ordinary  distinctions  between  southern  types  do 
not  fit  the  people  of  this  region.  They  are  an  intermedi- 
ate group,  representing  many  similar  ones  —  the  products 
of  limited  local  environments. 

The  great  physiographic  groupings  of  population 
within  the  several  states  are  easily  discerned.  North  Caro- 
lina, Tennessee,  and  Georgia  have  each  three  clearly  dis- 
tinguishable sections  of  about  equal  area;  biit  the  more 
intricate  diversities  of  this  land  of  contrasts,  which  are 

'  E.  g.  Fleming.  Civil  War  and  Reconstruction  in  Alabama.  See 
pp.  108  fF. 


[73] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

the  true  clue  to  Southern  history,  can  only  be  realized  by 
patient  study.  They  have  been  almost  totally  concealed 
Th   S    th  ^^  ^^®  great  struggle  which  compelled  men  to 

Naturally  the       forego  their  minor  differences  and  join  to- 
Least  "Solid"      gether  in  great  contending  armies.     Except 
^  '°^  for  the  negro,  the  South  would  be  the  least 

solid  section  of  America ;  and  in  the  long  run  geographical 
diversities  will  have  their  way,  especially  as  industry  and 
agriculture,  following  the  lead  of  science,  seek  out  the 
specific  adaptation  of  each  small  area  for  the  production 
of  wealth. 

Only  misunderstanding  and  injustice  can  result  when  this 
natural  basis  of  persistent  human  differences  is  forgotten. 
So  ■  1 1  ft  -  There  cannot  be  and  there  never  was  any  uni- 
tions  Colored  formity  of  social  conditions  throughout  the 
by  Local  En-  South  —  even  under  the  immense  pressure 
of  its  sectional  institutions.  The  local  char- 
acter of  slavery  was  economically  determined,  and  the  insti- 
tution everywhere  colored  by  the  varying  fortunes  of  the 
master  class.  The  condition  of  the  slave  was  not  the  same 
on  the  exhausted  seaboard  soils  as  in  the  still  prosperous 
middle  districts.  It  was  still  different  on  the  frontier.  The 
varying  reports  which  vexed  the  nation  through  all  the 
period  of  the  antislavery  agitation  were  due  to  varying 
facts.  Within  the  slave  population  too  there  were  distinct 
economic  classes.  The  status  of  the  field-hand  was  practi- 
cally different  from  that  of  the  skilled  mechanic  or  of  the 
household  servant  and  petty  overseer.^  Then  there  was 
a  considerable  minority  of  freed  negroes,  many  of  whom 
had  considerable  wealth  and  some  culture,  and  some- 
times an  organized  and  recognized  distinction  between 
the  mulatto  and  the  black  negro.     In  Charleston  a  mu- 

'  Hart,  Slavery  and  Abolition,  pp.  96  ff. 
_ 


THE    SIFTING    OF    THE    SOUTH 


latto  society,  the  "  Brown  Fellowship,"  has  existed  for 
over  a  hundred  years,  maintaining  its  social  exclusive- 
ness  and  its  private  cemetery.  For  many  years  it  operated 
select  schools  for  mulattoes  only.  The  public  records  of 
that  city  still  recognize  a  distinction  between  the  mulatto 
and  negro.  Naturally,  too,  there  was  a  difference  between 
city  and  country,  affecting  both  races.  Back  of  these 
antebellum  distinctions  stretch  dim  vistas  of  African  his- 
tory, the  untold  story  of  long  mingled  races  whose  varie- 
ties only  the  most  recent  writers  are  adequately  recogniz- 
ing.^ The  differences  developed  in  the  negro  by  these  an- 
cient siftings  go  far  toward  explaining  his  unequal  response 
to  the  demands  and  needs  of  the  present  day.  It  is  equally 
true  that  the  ordinary  versions  of  the  state  of  white  society 
in  the  South  before  the  war  are  altogether  more  simple 
than  the  facts.  It  was  the  general  tendency  of  slavery  to 
push  the  non-slaveholding  white  man  down  into  the  "  poor 
white "  class,  and  out  into  the  less  fertile  agricultural 
regions.  Still,  even  in  the  lower  South,  the  middle  class 
did  ^not  wholly  disappear,  and  considerable  areas  in  every 
state  maintained  a  characteristically  democratic  organi- 
zation of  society.  If  such  differences  could  maintain  them- 
selves then,  how  little  cause  to  expect  uniform  conditions 
now.''  The  fact  is  that  social  conditions  in  the  South  are, 
like  the  land  itself,  infinitely  complex. 

There  is,  therefore,  but  one  generalization  which  it  Is 
safe  to  make  about  the  South ;  namely,  that  one  must  not 
The  Evil  of  generalize  at  all.  This  is  particularly  true 
Generalization  of  all  attempted  judgments  upon  its  belated 
and  unassimilated  populations.  The  negro  does  not  show 
any  uniform  "  race  tendency  "  throughout  the  South.  He 
is  not  generally  given  to  an  abnormal  death-rate  or  to  ex- 
'  See  Dowd,  The  Negro  Races,  p.  415. 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

cessive  crime ;  neither  is  he  uniformly  successful  in  acquir- 
ing property  or  education.  There  is  no  equal  development 
of  race  consciousness  or  pride.  All  attempts  to  show  per- 
manent race  tendency  in  these  matters  are  futile.  Existing 
statistics  are  deceptive.  They  seem  to  admit  of  an  accurate 
comparison  of  the  negro  with  the  white ;  but  they  are  not 
compiled  separately  for  that  part  of  the  white  population 
with  which  it  is  fair  to  compare  the  negro,  namely,  that 
belonging  to  the  same  economic  and  social  status ;  and 
therefore  they  are  practically  worthless  unless  corrected 
by  a  knowledge  of  the  local  conditions  which  they  attempt 
to  generalize.  The  newer  sociology  is  righting  itself  in 
this  matter.  It  is  continually  narrowing  its  "  unit  of  in- 
vestigation "  and  seeking  to  do  justice  to  the  many  human 
varieties  molded  by  the  diversity  of  natural  environment 
and  of  work.^  Meanwhile  the  bitterest  injustice  of  gen- 
eralization still  characterizes  popular  judgments.  The 
mountaineer,  newly  sensitive  to  the  world's  opinion,  is 
justly  resentful  of  sweeping  alien  statements  as  to  his 
condition  and  his  needs.  His  group  is  by  no  means  homo- 
geneous. Where  there  are  mountains  there  are  valleys, 
and  these  have  been  the  ancient  routes  of  travel  and  early 
seats  of  civilization.  At  the  head  waters  of  the  Clinch  and 
Holston,  Sevier  and  his  companions  founded  the  "  State 
of  Franklin,"  which  was  in  1790,  and  has  always  continued 
to  be  one  of  the  most  thickly  populated  regions  in  the 
Union.  The  "  Prophet  of  the  Great  Smoky  Mountains  " 
can  literally  look  down  on  the  domes  of  colleges  a  hundred 
years  old.  The  mountaineer  of  fiction  and  romance  is  but 
the  most  isolated  and  least  progressive  class  within  the 
larger  mountain  province.  Highland  as  well  as  lowland, 
the  South  is  a  region  of  variety. 

*  See  Ross,  The  Foundations  of  Sociology,  ch.  iv.    Also  pp.  79  and  311  fif. 

_ 


THE    SIFTING    OF    THE    SOUTH 

And  now  under  the  mighty  and  exuberant  forces  of  the 
freed  and  awakened  South,  the  future  tends  to  bring  forth 
still  greater  variety  of  human  life.  Uniform  progress  is 
not  to  be  expected  either  in  the  lowlands  or  in  the  high- 
lands —  on  the  part  of  the  negro  or  of  the  backward  white 
man. 

III.    THE  CRISIS  OF  THE  SIFTING 

To-day  finds  the  South  at  the  crisis  of  its  sifting.  It  is 
characteristically  a  "  growing  South."  It  has  become  part 
The  "Growing  of  a  new  age  which  is  silently  resifting  all 
South "  civilized  peoples.     Vast  forces  —  with  which 

none  of  us  are  quite  at  home,  so  suddenly  have  they  come 
into  play  —  have  gripped  the  South  with  revolutionary 
violence.  An  anciently  primitive,  rural,  and  agricultural 
section,  feudally  organized,  is  rapidly  becoming  modern, 
urban,  and  industrial.  For  the  first  time  its  fatal  pre- 
occupation with  the  race  problem  has  been  broken  in  upon 
by  a  whole  new  group  of  urgent  social  questions.  The 
rise  of  the  industrial  labor  problem,  with  the  gradual  evo- 
lution of  modern  organized  labor  and  of  a  new  class  of 
Southern  industrial  masters,  compels  in  the  whole  section 
a  new  attitude  toward  work.  The  fact  of  woman  as  an 
economic  producer  in  the  mills  of  the  South  and  as  a  com- 
petitor with  men  in  its  business  offices  challenges  the  whole 
Southern  ideal  of  the  relation  of  the  sexes.  With  this 
totter  a  thousand  social  conventions  of  the  old  regime, 
beautiful  but  doomed.  With  the  new  growth  of  wealth 
the  old  aristocracy  of  birth  is  threatened  and  often  sub- 
merged. The  invasion  of  the  South  by  the  Hebrew  mer- 
chant has  been  eventful  almost  beyond  that  of  the  North- 
ern armies.  In  every  Southern  state  dominant  poHtical 
power  has  come  into  the  hands  of  the  "  poor  whites."    This 

'  TttT  " 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

is  almost  as  revolutionary  as  was  the  carpetbag  era.^ 
Southern  education,  which  was  studiously  polite  and  apart 
from  the  practicalities  of  life,  has  leaped  to  the  other 
extreme  and  leads  the  nation  in  its  industrial  and  voca- 
tional tendencies.  More  slowly,  yet  significantly,  the  new 
habit  of  scientific  candor  attacks  the  theological  and  social 
dogmas  of  the  South.  The  struggle  for  independent 
judgment  —  a  characteristic  feature  of  this  age  of  tran- 
sition —  against  the  peculiar  tyranny  of  sectional  tra- 
ditionalism, creates  a  new  type  of  Southern  leaders,  heroic 
beyond  their  peers.  For  the  first  time  in  a  century  the 
South  is  developing,  not  on  a  tangent  to,  but  in  direct  line 
with  the  choicest  currents  of  Western  civilization.  Yet 
however  we  may  glorify  the  process  we  must  remember  and 
regret  its  human  wreckage  and  debris  —  the  thousand 
"  men  of  yesterday  "  whom  the  age  is  sifting  out  as  un- 
equal to  its  strenuous  demands  and  its  speedy  ascent. 

These  mighty  changes  cannot  but  be  especially  crucial 
for  the  backward  and  unassimilated  peoples.  To  them 
m,  T.  1  .  they  mean  life  or  death.  The  belated  moun- 
People's  "Bad  taineer  and  the  undeveloped  negro  stand 
Quarter  of  an  to-day  in  an  acute  stage  of  what  the  sociolo- 
gist calls  the  selective  process.  Never  before 
and  perhaps  not  again  for  a  century  will  the  test  of  fitness 
be  so  insistent  and  so  searching.  It  is  not  to  be  expected 
that  either  group  should  come  off  whole.  No  race  was 
ever  saved  wholesale,  least  of  all  the  Anglo-Saxon.  By 
migration,  war,  pestilence,  and  economic  stress  he  has  been 
sifted  and  resifted ;  he  has  been  tried  in  a  furnace  seven 
times  heated.  His  salvation  is  the  salvation  of  the  rem- 
nant. The  negro  lacks  thousands  of  years  of  the  Saxons' 
sifting.  The  selective  forces,  which  have  made  the  Ameri- 
^  See  Brown,  Lower  South  in  American  History,  p.  256. 


Old  Memphis 
Negro  tenants  in  attics  and  basements  of  white  homes 


New  Jackson 
Real  estate  office  and  advertisement  of  negro  residential  subdivision 


THE    SIFTING    OF    THE    SOUTH 


can  of  to-day  what  he  is,  were  suspended  for  the  moun- 
taineer a  century  ago.  The  test  which  the  rest  of  the 
nation  has  gradually  met,  these  must  undergo  suddenly  and 
without  preparation.  Each  is  having  just  now  his  "bad 
quarter  of  an  hour."  Every  so-called  "  problem "  of 
these  backward  stocks  is  just  some  phase  or  other  of  this 
selective  process  and  as  such  must  be  judged. 

The  participation  of  the  mountains  in  the  rapid  tran- 
sitions of  the  new  South  is  manifest  chiefly  in  three 
movements. 

First,  the  exodus  of  mountain  population  to  the  cotton- 
mills  and  industrial  cities.  This  is  part  of  the  world  move- 
Exodus  from  ment  from  country  to  city.  In  the  case  of 
the  Mountains  the  mountaineer  it  is  particularly  pathetic 
because  of  his  ignorance,  his  ingrained  individualism  and 
his  lack  of  moral  preparedness  for  city  life.  Whole  coun- 
ties are  being  well-nigh  depopulated  by  emigration,  and 
the  problem  of  some  sections  of  the  mountains  is  whether 
there  will  be  any  people  left  in  them.  This  transition  is 
in  itself  a  radical  sifting.  Under  urban  conditions  the 
incapable  sink  into  a  singularly  inert  and  hopeless  class, 
well  known  to  the  charity  organizations  of  the  Southern 
cities.  The  capable,  on  the  other  hand,  with  marvelous 
rapidity  become  complete  Americans  and  themselves  mas- 
ters of  material  progress. 

Second,  the  invasion  of  the  mountains  by  industry. 
When  the  mountaineer  will  not  come  to  the  mill  the  mill 
Invasion  of  the  S^es  after  the  mountaineer.  The  insatiable 
Mountains  by  demand  of  modem  industry  for  new  and  un- 
Industry  exploited  labor  power  has  resulted  in  a  mar- 

velously  interesting  movement  of  industrial  enterprise  into 
the  mountains.  Their  inaccessibility  was  such  that  all  of 
Europe  and  even  Asia  were  ransacked  for  workers  before 


79] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

their  fastnesses  were  attacked;  but  now  the  most  unHkely 
places  are  invaded.  No  more  violent  test  can  be  forced 
upon  a  primitive  population  than  this  of  becoming  indus- 
trialized ;  and  the  mountaineer  is  bearing  it  unequally. 
To  one  man,  or  family,  it  means  not  only  a  better  wage, 
but  an  enlarged  outlook  on  life  and  an  escape  from  petty 
and  narrow  tradition ;  to  another  it  means  only  exploit- 
ation, degradation,  and  vice. 

Third,  the  invasion  of  the  mountains  by  leisure.  Less 
massive,  yet  deeply  significant,  is  the  change  coming  over 
Invasion  of  the  ^^^  mountaineer  through  the  exploitation  of 
Mountains  by  his  region  by  wealth  in  search  of  rest  and 
Leisure  recreation.     Situated  as  the  Southern  Appa- 

lachians are  between  North  and  lowland  South,  their  mild 
climate  and  beauty  of  scenery  makes  them  increasingly  the 
natural  playground  and  the  meeting-place  of  leisure  for 
both  sections.  Not  only  are  there  much-frequented  health 
resorts  like  Asheville,  but  new  armies  of  invading  tourists 
and  seasonal  residents  keep  breaking  in  upon  the  moun- 
tain people  with  alien  customs  and  standards  of  life.  They 
make  an  even  more  subtle  and  dangerous  attack  than  in- 
dustry does  upon  the  essential  genius  and  spirit  of  this 
our  most  democratic  and  peculiarly  American  remnant. 
The  native  is  outclassed  and  is  often  reduced  to  servile 
attendance  upon  the  pleasure-seeker,  whose  manners  and 
dress  set  new  fashions  and  whose  freely-spent  money 
rapidly  overturns  all  local  standards  of  value.  The  result 
is  frequently  a  certain  loss  of  independence  and  of  that 
staunch  self-respect  which  is  the  most  wholesome  and  at- 
tractive heritage  of  the  mountain  people.  Yet  this  same 
tourist  invasion  brings  also  ideals  of  culture  and  refine- 
ment and  opens  possibilities  of  life  which  create  new  worlds 
to  many  an  aspiring  mountain  youth. 


THE    SIFTING    OF    THE    SOUTH 


Thus  the  sifting  of  the  mountain  goes  on,  and  intensely, 
even  as  we  read  these  lines. 

The  present  crisis  of  the  negro's  sifting  is  outwardly 
shown  in  five  significant  aspects : 

First,  the  redistribution  of  population.^  The  present 
movements  of  the  negro  are  more  general  and  massive 
Two  Move-  than  at  any  other  time  since  his  coming  to 
ments  of  Negro  America.  They  take  two  directions  —  first, 
Population  ^Q    ^}^g    Southern    and,    more    recently,   espe- 

cially to  the  Northern  cities.  On  the  whole  his  city-ward 
movement  is  not  as  rapid  as  that  of  population  in  general, 
but  he  is  less  equal  to  city  life,  and  the  result  of  the  urban 
sifting  is  terribly  acute.  Scarcely  less  important  is  the 
fact  of  the  negro's  massing  in  the  Black  Belt.  In  our  pre- 
vious discussion  we  have  seen  that  he  was  carried  up  into 
the  Appalachian  foot-hills  against  the  natural  economic 
grain  of  that  region.  The  present  movement  is  a  revul- 
sion from  the  Piedmont  and  a  massing  in  the  valleys,  the 
low  prairies,  and  coast  lands.  From  the  standpoint  of 
state  boundaries  this  means  that  the  ratio  of  negroes  in 
several  border  states  is  rapidly  diminishing  with  a  corre- 
sponding increase  in  the  lower  South.  Of  ninety-seven 
counties  in  Virginia,  sixty  actually  lost  negro  population 
between  1890  and  1900.  The  coming  census  will  probably 
show  still  farther  movements  in  this  direction.  Whatever 
may  be  the  minor  significance  of  this  movement  it  in  gen- 
eral indicates  the  affinity  of  the  negro  for  the  lower,  hotter, 
and,  as  it  happens,  the  more  fertile  regions  of  the  South. 

Second,  the  newly  mobile  negro  population  is  increas- 
ingly subject  to  alarming  social  evils.  Such  transitional 
maladies  always  attack  people  who  are  undergoing  violent 

'  Kelsey,  The  Negro  Farmer,  pp.  12  ff;  Commons,  Races  and  Immi- 
grants in  America,  pp.  54  ff. 


[81] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

social  changes.  The  negro  seems  to  show  new  physical 
weakness.  His  death-rate  is,  roughly  speaking,  double 
Transitional  that  of  the  white  population.  On  the  face 
Maladies  of  the  returns  he  seems  to  be  far  and  away  the 

least  promising  element  of  our  people  morally.  His  crime 
rate  is  especially  excessive.  Yet  sociological  insight  pro- 
nounces these  to  be  the  usual  traits  of  peoples  in  like 
circumstances.  They  are  acute  phases  of  the  selective 
process. 

Third,  there  has  come  to  be  a  marked  differentiation  of 
elements  within  the  negro  population.     The  negro  has  dis- 

^.„        .    .         tributed  himself  throughout  all  of  the  eco- 

Differentiation  ,  ,•    •■•  /•    *  •  ••!•■•  a 

nomic  activities  or  American  civilization.     A 

magazine  writer  puts  the  case  rather  jauntily  as  follows: 

A  large  city  could  be  formed  without  a  single  white 
man  in  it,  and  yet  lack  for  no  trade  or  profession. 
There  are  21,268  negro  teachers  and  college  profes- 
sors in  the  United  States,  and  15,530  clergymen. 
The  negroes  could  finance  a  railroad  through  their 
82  bankers  and  brokers,  lay  it  out  with  their  120  civil 
engineers  and  surveyors,  condemn  the  right  of  way 
with  their  728  lawyers,  make  the  rails  with  their 
12,327  iron  and  steel  workers,  build  the  road  with 
their  545,980  laborers,  construct  its  telegraph  system 
with  their  185  electricians  and  their  529  linemen,  and 
operate  it  with  their  55,327  railway  employes. 

Colored  people  complain  that  they  have  to  sit  in  the 
gallery  in  white  theaters,  but  their  2043  actors  and 
showmen  might  give  them  theaters  of  their  own  in 
which  they  could  occupy  the  boxes  in  solitary  gran- 
deur. They  have  52  architects,  designers,  and  drafts- 
men, 236  artists  and  teachers  of  art,  1734  phy- 
sicians and  surgeons,  212  dentists,  210  journalists, 
3921  musicians  and  teachers  of  music,  and  99  literary 


THE    SIFTING    OF    THE    SOUTH 


and  scientific  persons.  The  colored  baby  can  be  in- 
troduced to  the  world  by  negro  physicians  and  nurses, 
instructed  in  every  accomplishment  by  negro  teachers, 
supplied  with  every  requisite  of  life  by  negro  mer- 
chants, housed  by  negro  builders,  and  buried  by  a 
negro  undertaker. 

There  are  negro  bookkeepers  and  accountants, 
clerks  and  copyists,  commercial  travelers,  merchants, 
salesmen,  stenographers  and  telegraph  operators. 
Negroes  are  in  every  manual  trade,  —  carpenters, 
masons,  painters,  paper-hangers,  plasterers,  plumbers, 
steam-fitters,  chemical  workers,  marble-cutters,  glass- 
workers,  fishermen,  bakers,  butchers,  confectioners, 
millers,  shoemakers,  tanners,  watchmakers,  gold  and 
silversmiths,  bookbinders,  engravers,  printers,  tailors, 
engineers,  photographers,  glove-makers, — everything 
that  statisticians  think  it  worth  while  to  count.  And 
the  curious  thing  is  that  in  whatever  line  a  negro  man 
is  at  work  there  also  is  a  negro  woman.  The  only  oc- 
cupation which  the  colored  women  have  allowed  their 
men  folk  to  monopolize  are  those  of  the  architect  and 
banker  and  broker,  the  telegraph  and  telephone  line- 
men, the  boiler-maker,  the  trunk-maker,  and  the  pat- 
tern-maker. You  can  hire  a  negro  civil  engineeress  and 
an  electricienne.  There  are  164  colored  clergy  women, 
262  black  actresses,  and  10  Afro- American  female 
lawyers.  One  negro  woman  works  as  a  roofer,  another 
as  a  plumber,  and  45  of  them  are  blacksmiths,  iron  and 
steel  workers,  and  machinists.  Three  are  wholesale, 
and  860  are  retail  merchants.  Others  are  journal- 
ists, literary  persons,  artists,  musicians,  government 
officials,  and  practitioners  of  an  infinite  variety  of 
skilled  and  unskilled  trades. 

Such  achievement  is  the  result  of  a  brief  and  imperfect 
sifting.     There  was  an  infinitely  wider  range  of  capacity 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

and  possible  usefulness  within  the  race  than  the  most 
sanguine  could  have  imagined  when  the  slave  was  freed. 

A  full  quota  of  social  classes  has  also  appeared,  and  the 
stratification  of  negro  society  has  proceeded  almost  as  fast 
as  that  of  white.  Every  considerable  Southern  community 
now  shows  a  complete  and  almost  sclf-sufHcient  negro 
group  life,  with  its  separate  institutions  and  ideals,  within 
that  of  the  general  population.  The  organized  life  of  the 
American  negro  is  fast  becoming  an  imperium  in  imperio. 

Fourth,  there  is  an  increasing  segregation  of  the  negro 
population  from  the  white.  Its  development  from  within 
and  its  new  habit  of  self-dependence,  results 
in  a  growing  loss  of  contact  with  the  general 
life.  This  is  necessarily  so  in  those  geographically  dis- 
tinct Black  Belts  in  which  the  negro  is  massing.  Within 
the  cities,  too,  the  races  tend  increasingly  to  occupy  sepa- 
rate sections ;  while  the  social  ban  and  barrier  on  the 
whole  certainly  grow  more  rigid.  This  means  the  tem- 
porary withholding  of  great  untouched  masses  of  the 
race  from  the  acute  sifting  which  their  city-going  brethren 
are  experiencing.  It  is  certain  to  prolong  indefinitely 
the  problem  of  the  complete  assimilation  of  the  negro. 
Cut  off  from  the  stimulus  of  white  civilization,  he  fre- 
quently shows  reversionary  tendencies  toward  African 
conditions.  On  the  other  hand,  segregation  in  the  rural 
regions  tends  to  hold  in  reserve  the  sounder  element  of 
the  race,  from  which  capacity  and  moral  health  may  be 
supplied  to  the  future.  All  peoples  need  such  a  reserve 
force  from  which  recruits  can  come,  not  too  rapidly,  under 
the  strenuous  demands  of  civilization.  Thus  the  withhold- 
ing of  the  Black  Belt  from  the  acute  sifting  of  the  present 
has  an  important  and  favorable  bearing  on  the  ultimate 
prospects  of  the  American  negro. 

[84] 


THE    SIFTING    OF    THE    SOUTH 


Fifth,  as  a  result  of  the  partial  and  incomplete  sifting 
of  the  immediate  past,  a  negro  minority  has  emerged  fully 
Emergence  of  prepared  for  participation  in  American  civ- 
the"New  ilization.     This  emerged  class,  the  "talented 

^^S^o  tenth,"   is   a  new   human   type,  bearing   the 

characters  of  freedom  and  demonstrating  the  immense  ad- 
vantage of  even  the  limited  democratic  opportunity  which 
the  race  has  had  since  emancipation.  It  had  a  certain  his- 
toric basis  in  the  attainments  of  the  free  negro  of  the  old 
regime  and  the  privileges  of  certain  upper  classes  of  slaves  ; 
yet  its  essential  traits  have  never  before  been  attained  by 
the  negro.  For  the  first  time  in  his  history  there  is  the  firm 
establishment  of  monogamous  marriage  and  the  ideals  of 
the  Christian  home.  The  first  generation  of  children  born, 
of  such  homes  are  just  entering  upon  independent  life. 
This  group,  too,  has  developed  a  genuine  culture,  includ- 
ing distinctive  esthetic  and  ethical  marks  of  negro  genius, 
which  constitutes  a  yet  unmeasured  contribution  to  the 
ideal  life  of  the  world,  yet  sharing  the  best  thought,  feel- 
ing, and  activity  of  Western  civilization.  It  has  developed 
manifold  organs  of  social  control  and  reached  a  magnifi- 
cent place  of  leadership  over  the  general  negro  mass.  On 
the  other  hand  there  are  manifest  tendencies  for  the 
emerged  class  to  break  away  from  that  mass.  Hitherto  it 
has  consisted  largely  of  mulattoes,  and  one  of  the  most 
fateful  questions  for  the  American  negro  is  whether  the 
mulatto  group  will  attempt  to  regard  itself  as  an  inter- 
mediate race  between  the  white  and  black,  or  accept  that 
identification  with  the  negro  to  which  white  sentiment 
assigns  it.  This  is  the  deepest  issue  within  the  higher 
negro  classes  to-day.-^  Upon  this  issue  race  leaders  are 
divided  and  by  it  race  sentiment  is  being  sifted.  Whatever 
'  Baker,  "  Following  the  Color-Line,"  The  Mulatto,  ch.  viii. 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

else  the  emergence  of  such  a  group  signifies,  it  is  clear 
that  among  those  socially  classified  as  negroes  there  was 
a  considerable  minority  who  are  not  unfit  for  the  compe- 
titions and  achievements  of  white  civilization.  Under 
slavery  its  members  were  socially  suppressed.  So  far,  at 
least,  the  inferior  status  of  the  race  was  not  due  to  inferior 
capacity.  Now  that  part  —  and  only  part  —  of  the  pres- 
sure has  been  removed  their  fitness  manifests  itself,  and 
they  take  their  natural  place  of  successful  leadership.  The 
progress  of  the  negro  under  this  leadership  has  already 
been  marvelous,  and  is  a  reliable  indication  of  still  wider 
capacity  and  potential  worth  awaiting  to  be  revealed  when 
opportunity  is  more  perfectly  equalized. 

Such  are  some  of  the  phases  of  the  great  process  of 
social  selection  working  in  the  South.  To  illustrate  and 
interpretate  them  still  further  will  be  the  work  of  subse- 
quent discussions. 

IV.    STUDY  OF  THE  WELL-SIFTED  NEGRO 
COMMUNITY 

What  the  process  of  selection  concretely  means  and  how 
it  actually  works  out  is  best  realized  through  the  study 
of  the  particular  population.  Thomasville,  Georgia,  shows 
such  a  well-sifted  negro  community.  The  facts  relating  to 
it  here  summarized  were  gathered  by  Rev.  William  H.  Hol- 
loway,  pastor  of  the  local  Congregational  church. 

In  1900,  Thomasville  was  a  city  of  3296  colored  and 
2026  white  population.  It  has  grown  to  probably  8000 
people,  about  the  same  relative  proportion  between  the 
races  being  maintained.  The  county  had  at  the  last  census 
17,4*50  negroes  and  13,626  whites.  It  is  part  of  the 
"  Black  Belt "  lying  in  Southwestern  Georgia,  about 
twenty  miles  above  the  Florida  line. 


THE    SIFTING    OF    THE    SOUTH 


An  investigation  of  the  distribution  of  the  two  races 
within  the  city  Hmits  of  Thomasville  shows  clearly  the 
Segregation  of  tendency  to  segregation.  The  negroes 
the  Races  occupy   solidly   four  distinct   areas  lying  in 

general  toward  the  outskirts  of  the  city.  Some  of  their 
better  homes  are  near  the  center,  and,  in  fact,  they  are 
well  represented  on  the  best  streets,  but  such  property  was 
acquired  before  the  recent  growth  in  population.  Con- 
tiguity between  the  races  is  due  largely  to  the  filling  in  of 
population  between.  A  negro  would  not  now  easily  find 
a  central  location.  There  is  a  marked  tendency,  and  one 
vigorously  encouraged  by  both  races,  toward  geographical 
separation. 

On  this  account  the  most  extensive  of  recent  movements 
of  negro  population  have  been  suburban.  Within  five 
Suburban  years  three  distinct  sections  beyond  the  city 

Development  limits  have  been  developed  as  exclusive  resi- 
dential sections  for  the  race.  In  them  the  acquirement  of 
property  and  the  building  of  homes  has  gone  on  most 
extensively.  These  developments  have  been  modern,  fur- 
nished with  streets  and  drainage.  Trees  have  been 
planted,  and  in  one  of  the  new  additions  a  children's 
playground  established.  The  district  adjoining  the 
American  Missionary  Association  school,  called  the 
Normal  School  Annex,  has  seen  the  erection  of  thirty- 
five  comfortable  little  homes  and  half  as  many  more 
lots  sold  to  prospective  builders.  In  "  Dewey  City " 
twenty  or  more  cottages  have  been  built,  while  in  a  single 
season  over  a  hundred  lots  were  bought  and  several 
homes  built  in  Normal  School  Park.  Similar  develop- 
ments of  exclusive  residential  sections  for  negroes  are 
going  on  in  most  of  the  South  Georgia  cities.  They 
are   partly   due  to   the   activity   of  real  estate  promoters 


[87] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

but  rest  back  upon  the  community  building  spirit  of  the 
race. 

The  development  of  these  residential  sections  means  not 
merely  the  geographical  separation  of  the  negro  from  the 
Segregation  white  population,  but  also  the  geographical 
within  the  separation    of    the    better    from    the    poorer 

Negro  Race  classes  of  negroes.  It  means  segregation 
within  the  race.  Whole  streets  and  blocks  of  negro  homes 
stand  in  sharp  contrast  to  equal  areas  of  tenant  prop- 
erty. The  houses  are  invariably  painted,  the  yards  neatly 
fenced,  the  surroundings  generally  beautified  by  shrubs 
and  flowers.  Within  these  homes  are  mothers  and  daugh- 
ters who  are  primarily  home  makers.  Frequently  they  em- 
ploy servants.  Such  negroes  maintain  their  own  social 
distinction  as  strictly  as  do  any  American  group.  The 
tenant  quarters,  on  the  other  hand,  show  long  rows  of  bare, 
decrepit,  unkempt  cabins  where  turbaned  Amazons  may 
be  seen  washing  over  fires  built  in  the  front  yards,  or  cut- 
ting their  own  fuel  from  the  log,  fences  and  door-steps 
frequently  being  used  for  kindling.  These  external  con- 
trasts stand  for  deep  differences  between  negro  groups. 
They  are  evidences  of  the  sifting  of  the  race. 

It  has  been  found  impossible  to  collect  complete  infor- 
mation as  to  the  ownership  of  homes  by  Thomasville 
negroes.  Large  areas  within  the  city  limits  have  been 
built  up,  and  the  negroes  almost  invariably  own  the  prop- 
erty which  they  occupy,  while  the  suburban  developments 
just  described  are  virtually  all  extensions  of  home  owner- 
ship. "  It  is  rare,"  says  Mr.  Holloway,  "  to  find  a  colored 
man  who  has  lived  any  number  of  years  in  Thomasville, 
who  does  not  wholly  or  in  part  own  his  own  home."  City 
taxes  in  1907  were  paid  by  negroes  on  $189,000  worth 
of  property  —  undoubtedly   a  conservative  estimate,   for 

fssl 


Home  of  Negro  Landlord,  Tho>iasvii,le,  Ga. 
Tenant  houses  adjoining 


Negro  Artisan  and  Street  of  Artisans'  Homes,  Thomasville,  Ga. 


THE    SIFTING    OF    THE    SOUTH 


the  colored  man  has  learned  from  his  white  neighbor  how 
to  return  as  small  a  tax  Hst  as  possible. 

Eighteen  business  enterprises  carried  on  by  negroes  are 
housed  in  property  owned  by  members  of  the  race.  These 
Business  range  in  value  from  $2500  to  $7500  and  are 

Property  situated  in  all  parts  of  the  town.     Near  the 

business  center  on  Broad  Street  is  a  two-story  brick  build- 
ing in  which  the  negro  owner  conducts  a  first-class  shoe 
business.  On  Jackson  Street,  the  second  business  street 
of  Thomasville,  is  a  $3000  building  in  which  the  negro 
owner  carries  on  his  own  grocery  business.  Another  negro 
owns  unimproved  property  worth  $3000. 

The  most  surprising  extension  of  ownership  by  Thomas- 
ville negroes  is,  however,  in  the  Hne  of  property  for  rental 
Rental  purposes.     Mr.  Holloway  has  tabulated  207 

Property  separate  dwellings,   valued   at   from   $75   to 

$1000,  owned  and  rented  by  them.  Ten  of  them  are  rented 
to  whites.  The  most  extensive  negro  landlord  is  a  widow, 
Mrs.  Toomer  Hamilton.  In  a  single  block  she  has  sixteen 
tenements,  and  in  all  twenty-six  pieces  of  rented  property, 
bringing  her  in  a  comfortable  monthly  income.  The  prop- 
erty was  first  acquired  by  her  late  husband,  a  successful 
liveryman,  but  has  been  added  to  by  the  shrewdness  of 
his  widow.  Another  negro  landlord  has  twelve  rental 
houses,  another  seven,  and  many  others  own  from  one  to 
five. 

All  told  this  makes  an  impressive  showing  of  property 
ownership  by  the  Thomasville  negro.  To  be  sure  the  value 
of  his  property  averages  much  less  than  that  of  the  whites, 
but  as  representing  the  acquirement  of  the  race  within  forty 
years  it  is  most  creditable.  Moreover,  as  indicating  a 
tendency  toward  ownership  it  is  highly  significant.  Prob- 
ably  as   many  negroes   own   property   in   Thomasville  in 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

proportion  to  their  numbers  as  whites  do,  and  according 
to  the  real  estate  agents  they  are  now  building  homes  twice 
as  fast  as  the  white  population. 

Appended  to  this  paragraph  is  a  table  showing  that 
there  are  eighty  professional  negroes  in  Thomasville,  rep- 
Occupations:  resenting  fifteen  different  professions.  A 
Professional  very  disproportionate  number  of  them  are 
preachers.  The  list  indicates,  however,  that  the  Thomas- 
ville negro  group  is  almost  self-sufficient  in  the  matter  of 
professional  service.  It  carefully  limits  itself,  moreover, 
to  those  only  whose  professional  standing  is  commonly 
called  first-class.  Thus  there  are  many  nurses  able  to 
command  as  much  as  $10  per  week  for  their  services,  but 
only  the  two  who  are  graduates  of  nurse-training  schools 
are  listed. 

The  two  physicians  have  each  an  extensive  practise. 
Both  are  graduates  of  reputable  medical  colleges  and  have 
licenses  from  the  Georgia  Medical  Association.  One  has 
practised  in  Thomasville  eight  years,  the  other  five.  They 
receive  all  professional  courtesies  from  the  white  physicians 
and  have  equal  privileges  in  the  use  of  the  city  hospital. 

The  colored  dentist  is  also  a  graduate  of  a  first-class 
institution.  His  well-appointed  office  has  the  latest  type 
of  pneumatic  chair  and  a  cabinet  of  modern  instruments. 
The  colored  community  gives  him  an  almost  exclusive 
patronage. 

The  entire  force  of  mail-carriers,  numbering  four,  is 
colored.  All  happen  to  be  graduates  of  schools  of  the 
American  Missionary  Association  and  members  of  the  Con- 
gregational church.  The  positions  were  of  course  secured 
by  competitive  examination. 

Of  the  fourteen  negro  pastors  of  Thomasville,  five  are 
college  graduates,  two  of  whom  hold  also  diplomas  from 

[90] 


THE    SIFTING    OF    THE    SOUTH 


Northern  divinity  schools.  These  five  serve  the  largest 
and  most  intelligent  congregations.  In  thoughtfulness 
and  careful  preparation  their  preaching  is  in  striking  con- 
trast to  the  emotionalism  of  the  old-fashioned  negro  ex- 
horter.  They  are  men  of  good  character,  whose  chief 
shortcoming  is  parochial  narrowness  and  blindness  to  the 
large  mission  of  the  church  to  the  community. 

The  nine  other  preachers  represent  the  older  type. 
With  one  or  two  exceptions  they  are  ignorant  and  most  of 
them  are  immoral.  Nowhere  indeed  is  the  moral  sifting  of 
the  race  more  strongly  marked  than  in  its  church  life. 

The  Thomasville  negro  has  an  almost  undisputed  monop- 
oly in  skilled  industry.  The  statistics  of  the  appended 
Occupations;  table  are  compiled  from  the  books  of  the 
Industrial  labor-unions    and   list    only    first-class    work- 

men, who  constitute  only  about  one-fourth  of  the  mem- 
bership. In  the  Carpenters'  Union,  for  example,  out  of  a 
membership  of  seventy-four  only  about  twenty  command 
the  highest  wage,  $2.50  to  $3  per  day.  Many  of  the 
palatial  winter  homes  of  the  Northerners,  some  costing 
upward  of  $100,000,  were  almost  entirely  built  by  Thomas- 
ville negro  workmen.  All  the  white  contractors  of  the  city 
have  negro  foremen  and  there  are  three  licensed  colored 
contractors. 

At  the  time  of  Mr.  Holloway's  investigation  the  city 
had  just  given  to  a  colored  man  a  $30,000  contract  for  an 
addition  to  the  sewer  system.  Negro  contractors  had  also 
secured  the  brick  work  for  the  new  city  hall  and  for  the 
two  brick  business  buildings  then  being  erected.  The 
negroes  say  there  are  no  first-class  white  carpenters  or 
masons  in  Thomasville.  The  same  question  put  to  a 
white  contractor  brought  the  answer  that  perhaps  three 
white  carpenters  were   first-class   and   two   masons.      This 


[91] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

shows  the  dominant  place  of  the  negro  in  the  building 
industries. 

Many  of  the  skilled  negro  workmen  live  in  comfortable 
homes  and  bear  the  highest  reputation  for  character  in  the 
community. 

The  appended  table  shows  that  in  the  whole  range  of 
skilled  industry  the  Thomasville  negro  holds  a  command- 
ing position.  There  is  not  a  single  occupation  in  which 
he  is  not  found,  and  in  which  he  does  not  compete  success- 
fully with  white  workmen.  This,  however,  has  led  to  little 
industrial  friction,  white  and  colored  laborers  working  side 
by  side  on  almost  all  jobs.  Indeed  this  is  usual  in  the 
smaller  places  throughout  the  South.  In  a  recent  car- 
penters' strike  for  a  nine-hour  day,  white  and  colored 
unions  met  in  conference,  and  when  their  demands  were 
refused  all  stuck  together. 

The  three  blocks  of  Jackson  Street  leading  up  from 
the  railroad  station  to  Broad  Street  are  in  importance  the 
Occupations:  second  business  center  of  Thomasville;  the 
Business  street,    a    paved    thoroughfare    with    electric 

lights,  good  water  and  sewerage  facilities,  and  lined  with 
substantial  brick  stores.  In  these  three  blocks  there  are 
twenty-six  different  enterprises  conducted  by  negroes. 
Their  patronage  is,  naturally,  chiefly  within  the  race,  but 
the  better  firms  have  also  considerable  white  trade.  In  fact 
whenever  the  negro  store  is  believed  to  carry  a  high  grade 
of  stock  and  to  furnish  first-class  service  it  is  favorably 
regarded  by  a  large  number  of  Southern  white  patrons. 
This  fact  has  been  the  means  of  raising  the  standard  in  a 
considerable  number  of  enterprises.  While  many  of  the 
twenty-six  are  businesses  with  small  stocks  and  poor  fix- 
tures, an  increasing  number  are  thoroughly  equipped  and 
in  every  way  creditable.     Mr.  H.  Daniels,  for  example,  in 

[9^] 


Negro  Business  Men's  Homes,  Tho.masvii.le,  Ga. 


Negro  Drug  Store  and  Proprietor,  Thojiasvili.e,  Ga. 


THE    SIFTING    OF    THE    SOUTH 


twelve  years  of  business,  has  come  to  own  a  fine  grocery- 
store,  occupying  his  own  two-story  brick  building.  He 
also  conducts  a  first-class  colored  restaurant  and  a  barber 
shop,  runs  a  woodyard,  and  has  considerable  real  estate 
which  he  rents  to  whites  as  well  as  negroes.  In  ten  years 
Robert  Mitchell,  formerly  an  itinerant  fishmonger,  has 
acquired  the  largest  stock  of  general  merchandise  of  any 
colored  business  man.  He  has  a  branch  store  in  the  sub- 
urbs and  owns  five  rental  houses.  Of  the  seven  grocery 
firms  on  Jackson  Street,  five  have  been  in  the  business  for 
over  seven  years  and  one  boasts  a  fifteen  years'  record. 
In  addition  to  the  Jackson  Street  business  center,  there  are 
fifteen  suburban  stores  run  by  negroes.  The  Local  Busi- 
ness Men's  League  claims  that  at  least  two-thirds  of  the 
colored  grocery  patronage  of  Thomasville  is  held  by  negro 
merchants. 

The  strong  tendency  thus  revealed  toward  a  self- 
sufficient  group  life  is  of  comparatively  recent  origin.  It 
Development  ^^  interesting  to  note  the  circumstances  which 
of  Race  have  brought  race  consciousness  to  light  and 

Consciousness  hastened  its  development.  For  example,  the 
colored  physician  had  but  a  precarious  practise  until  a 
well-to-do  negro  called  in  a  young  white  doctor  to  attend 
his  wife.  The  doctor  walked  into  the  patient's  room  with 
his  hat  on  and  sat  down  on  the  bed  with  a  smoking 
cigarette  in  his  mouth.  The  husband  leaned  upon  the 
bedside,  as  he  said,  "  mad  enough  to  fight  a  cross-cut 
saw."  He  made  no  remonstrance,  but  later  tore  up 
the  white  doctor's  prescription  and  called  in  a  colored 
doctor.  Probably  no  other  white  doctor  in  Thomasville 
would  have  been  guilty  of  such  discourtesy ;  yet,  under 
the  strained  condition  of  race  feeling,  the  incident 
set    the    negro    community    against    all    white    doctors. 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

Now  the  tendency  is  strong  to  favor  physicians  of  their 
own  race. 

The  case  of  the  negro  dentist  was  similar.  For  years 
a  prominent  white  dentist  had  held  practically  all  the  pat- 
ronage of  the  negro  population,  making  no  discrimination 
in  his  treatment  of  them.  Whites  were  made  to  wait  their 
turn  when  negro  patients  were  in  the  chair.  When  this 
man  retired  from  active  practise,  new  white  dentists  came 
in,  who  set  up  second-hand  chairs  for  negroes  in  their 
back  storerooms.  The  same  prices,  however,  were  charged, 
and  in  response  to  this  discrimination,  the  negro  community 
imported  and  now  exclusively  patronizes  its  own  dentist. 

Similarly  a  leading  millinery  store  inaugurated  the  cus- 
tom of  not  allowing  any  negro  customer  to  try  on  a  hat. 
She  must  be  satisfied  with  viewing  it  on  the  head  of  the 
white  clerk.  When  a  colored  minister's  wife  was  refused 
this  privilege  the  minister  took  the  incident  to  his  con- 
gregation. As  a  result  the  firm  lost  all  its  colored  pat- 
ronage and  soon  went  into  the  hands  of  a  receiver. 

These  incidents  indicate  two  things :  on  the  part  of  the 
negro,  a  new  sensitiveness  as  to  his  rights  and  a  new  con- 
sciousness of  racial  resources ;  on  the  part  of  the  later 
generation  of  whites,  new  tendencies  to  discrimination. 

Between  seven  and  ten  colored  insurance  employees  make 
daily  rounds  to  the  homes  of  the  negro  community,  collect- 
NeffTo  Institu-  ^^S  ^^^  small  dues  which  secure  sick  and  acci- 
tions:  dent    benefits.      They    represent    three    com- 

Economic  panics,  one  with  headquarters  in  New  York, 

the  other  two  large  Georgia  institutions,  organized  and 
operated  by  negroes.  Three  years  ago  the  legislature 
enacted  some  undoubtedly  necessary  laws  to  regulate  such 
companies.  Probably,  however,  their  immediate  instiga- 
tion was  by  white  insurance  companies  in  the  hope  of  put- 

_ 


THE    SIFTING    OF    THE    SOUTH 


ting  their  negro  rivals  out  of  business.     The  result  was  ' 
that  a  large  number  of  local  companies  combined  and  three 
negro  insurance  enterprises  were  able  to  make  the  deposit 
of  $5000  required  by  state  law. 

Almost  every  negro  home  in  Thomasville  carries  policies 
in  some  one  of  these  companies.  A  weekly  premium  of  five 
cents  secures  a  sick  benefit  of  $2  per  week  and  a  death 
benefit  of  $10.  Ten  cents  secures  a  sick  benefit  of  $3 
and  a  death  benefit  of  $15.  Twenty-five  cents  secures  a 
sick  benefit  of  $5  and  a  death  benefit  of  $25.  In  addition 
to  this  humbler  type  of  insurance,  Mr.  Holloway  reports 
that  a  number  of  families  carry  policies  in  regular  "  old- 
line  "  companies.  Georgia  has  also  two  negro  fire  insur- 
ance companies,  one  of  which  maintains  an  office  in  Thomas- 
ville and  secures  a  large  share  of  negro  patronage. 

Besides  their  churches  already  enumerated,  the  Thomas- 
ville negro  community  has  a  full  quota  of  social  institu- 
Negrolnstitu-  tions.  An  organization  of  colored  women 
tions  of  the  called  the  "  How  to  Live  Club  "  has  a  mem- 
High  Life  bership  of  about  forty.  Besides  literary 
features,  it  has  undertaken  as  its  particular  work  the  sup- 
port of  the  colored  ward  in  the  city  hospital.  The 
Women's  Federation  is  building  a  negro  "  Old  Folks' 
Home."  Some  thousand  dollars  have  been  collected  for 
this  purpose,  and  the  race  is  thus  attempting  to  keep  its 
aged  members  from  the  hardship  of  the  county  poorhouse. 

Besides  a  public  school,  poorly  housed,  and  with  almost 
no  playground,  there  are  two  schools  for  Thomasville 
negroes  supported  by  philanthropy.  One  is  a  small 
parochial  enterprise  attached  to  an  Episcopal  Church  and 
taught  by  its  minister.  The  other,  Allen  Normal  Insti- 
tute, a  well-equipped  and  growing  girls'  seminary,  admits 
boys  also  as  day  pupils.     This  institution  is  described  at 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

length  in  another  connection.     These  private  schools  are 

patronized    almost    exclusively    by    the    better    class    of 

negroes.      Thus  segregation  within  the  race  is  expressed 

also  in  its  education. 

The  relations  between  negro  and  white  in  Thomasville 

are  on  the  whole  kindly  and  mutually  helpful.     There  are 

_,      ^  occasional  frictions,  but  they  have  never  been 

Race  Contacts  .  -p. .       .     .      , .  ,     i         ii 

serious.      Discrimmations    are    met    by    the 

negroes  by  the  withdrawal  upon  their  own  resources  in- 
stead of  by  active  resentment.  There  has  never  been  a 
lynching  in  the  city  and  only  one  in  the  county,  which  was 
universally  condemned  by  the  better  element  of  white 
citizens.  Mr.  Holloway  writes,  "  There  seems  to  be  a 
growing  conviction  among  both  races  that  not  all  negroes 
are  bad  and  that  not  all  white  men  are  good.  There  are 
evidences  on  every  hand  that  good  white  people  are  lending 
a  helping  hand  to  the  good  negro  in  his  efforts  to  rise, 
and  the  negro  in  turn  is  striving  to  make  good  his  citizen- 
ship in  the  community  where  his  rights  are  so  secure  and 
his  opportunities  so  numerous." 

The  whole  story  means  that  the  negroes  of  Thomasville 
constitute  a  fairly  typical  American  group.  If  they  do 
not  quite  reach  it,  they  at  least  closely  approximate  the 
national  average  of  attainment.  Their  deficiencies  are 
mere  backwardness,  not  abnormal  or  unwholesome.  They 
are  practising  a  relatively  complete  group  economy,  yet 
without  bitterness  or  practical  antagonism  to  or  from  the 
dominant  white  population.  From  every  reasonable  human 
standpoint  the  black  citizens  of  this  typical  city  have  made 
good. 


[96] 


THE    SIFTING    OF    THE    SOUTH 


APPENDIX  TO  CHAPTER  III 
TABLE  I 

OCCUPATIONS    (professional) 

Physicians 2 

Pharmacist 1 

Dentist 1 

Chiropodists 2 

Graduate  Nurses 2 

Graduate  Hair  Dresser 1 

Preachers 15 

Teachers  (male) 5 

Teachers  (female) 30 

Civil  Service 5 

Rural  Free  Delivery 3 

Government  Service 1 

Insurance 9 

Editors 2 

Musician 1 

TABLE  n 

OCCUPATIONS    (industrial) 

Licensed  Contractors 4 

Carpenters,  first-class  (Union-men) 20 

Brick  Masons,  first-class  (Union-men)      18 

Plasterers 11 

Painters 6 

Tinners  and  Plumbers 4 

Skilled  Mechanists 2 

Pressman 1 

"Wheelwrights 2 

Blacksmiths 4 

Bakers 2 

Paper-hangers 2 

Carriage  Painter 1 

7  foT] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 


TABLE  m 

NEGRO    BUSINESS    ENTERPRISES 


KINDS   OF   BUSINESS 


EACH 
VALUE 


MEN  EM- 
PLOYED 


OCCUPY 

OWN 
PEOPERTY 


UP- 
TOWN 


SUB- 
URBS 


1 

1 

2 
4 
15 
1 
1 
1 
6 
1 
3 
1 
3 
1 


Drugstore 

Grocery      

Groceries 

Groceries 

Groceries 

Undertaker    .... 
Harness  shop    .    .    . 

Tailor 

Barber  Shops    .    .    . 

Hotel 

Pressing  Clubs      .    . 

Butcher      

First-class  restaurant 
Dairy      


$4000 

3000 

2000 

500 

2000 
300 
200 


250 


300 


2 
12 
3 
7 
3 


15 
1 


10-11 


4 

2 
10 


2-8 

2 
3-5 

1 


15 
I 


[98] 


IV.     THE    SIFTING   OF    SOUTHERN 
SENTIMENT 

I.    SIFTING  THE  HEARTS  OF  MEN 

HOW  shall  a  dominant  social  group  respond  to  the 
partial  sifting  of  any  backward  population  in  its 
midst?  How  shall  it  treat  the  emerged  minority 
of  such  a  backward  population  which  approximates  its 
own  normative  standards? 

The  backward  group  simply  cannot  be  treated  according 
to  any  single  policy ;  for  its  members  are  not  alike,  and  its 
extremes  lie  far  apart.  This  necessitates  discriminative 
changes  in  the  social  policy  of  the  dominant  group.  We 
found  the  Thomasville  (Ga.)  negro,  for  example,  showing 
marked  differentiation,  physical,  social,  and  moral,  accord- 
ing to  which  segregation  was  progressing  within  the  race. 
Shall  the  responsible,  property  owning,  home  making 
negro  be  treated  as  the  transient,  tenant,  and  pauper 
class?  Manifestly  not.  But  this  introduces  new  com- 
plexity into  the  race  problem ;  indeed,  it  raises  the  whole 
group  of  modern  social  problems.  This  the  South  vaguely 
feels  and  variously  acknowledges.  For  the  first  time  it  is 
awake  to  the  varying  intellectual  and  moral  moods  of  the 
age. 

The  hearts  of  men  are  being  sifted  for  practical  re- 
sponses to  the  changing  facts.  Underneath  the  super- 
ficial unanimity  of  Southern  sentiment  surge  currents  of 
perplexing  variety. 


99 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 


Border  States  vs.  Lower  South 

The  general  causes  of  these  varying  attitudes  and  prac- 
tises  are  easily   traced.      They  are  partly   geographical. 

^  , .    ,       The  neero  population,  as  we  have  shown,  is 

Geographical  i       i-       -i  i     ^  i 

Causes  of  by  no  means  evenly  distributed  throughout 

Variation  in         the   South.      In  the  border  states   where  his 
n  imen  numbers  are  proportionately  few,  race  pres- 

sure is  less  acute  than  in  the  lower  South  where  he  is  felt 
to  threaten  white  civilization  by  the  sheer  weight  of  num- 
bers. In  Lexington,  Kentucky,  for  example,  the  coopera- 
tion of  colored  citizens  was  especially  invited  in  recent 
movements  for  civic  betterment.  They  were  invited  to 
public  gatherings,  announcement  of  which  was  made  in 
the  negro  schools.  As  a  result  members  of  that  race  have 
been  frequent  prize  winners  in  competitions  for  the  neatest 
home  garden  or  the  best  kept  lawn.  Louisville  supports 
a  public  high  school  for  negroes,  in  which  the  classics  are 
taught.  This  public  institution  has  been  probably  the 
chief  feeder  of  Fisk  University.  Indeed  almost  the  only 
decently  sustained  public  secondary  schools  for  negroes 
in  the  South  are  in  these  states.  Nearly  two-thirds  of  all 
pupils  in  public  colored  high  schools  are  in  the  five  border 
states  and  Texas.  The  other  eight  combined  enroll  but 
a  trifle  more  than  eleven  hundred.^  The  recent  attack  upon 
the  negro's  franchise  rights  has  been  less  violent  in  these 
states.  North  Carolina,  for  example,  refused  to  extend 
the  time  limit  of  the  "  grandfather  clause  "  for  the  benefit 
of  the  white  in  the  very  year  that  Georgia  and  Mississippi 
were  planning  the  complete  disfranchisement  of  the  negro. 
Both  North  Carolina  and  Tennessee  have  with  Kentucky 
been  carried  by  the  Republican  party  in  recent  years  and 

1  Report  of  Com.  of  Education,  1906,  vol.  2,  p.  1151. 
__ 


THE    SIFTING    OF    SOUTHERN    SENTIMENT 

are  by  many  regarded  as  among  the  permanently  doubtful 
states  of  the  near  future.  Jim  Crow  regulations,  while 
not  absent  from  the  border  states,  are  not  carried  out  in 
their  more  rigorous  detail.  In  other  words,  these  states 
tend  rather  to  treat  the  negro  as  part  of  the  general  popu- 
lation, as  the  North  does,  than  to  make  him  a  separate 
class. 

Old  South  vs.  Southwest 

There  are  clearly  marked  differences  in  the  race  situa- 
tion between  the  old  slavery  regions  and  those  settled  since 
The  Negro  as  the  war.  On  soil  never  stained  by  the  sweat 
Pioneer  and  blood  of  the  slave,  where  men  of  both 

races  have  pioneered  together,  the  inevitable  democracy 
of  the  frontier  has  modified  race  contacts.  The  Texas  and 
Oklahoma  negro  clearly  shows  a  certain  initiative  and  re- 
sourcefulness and  an  independence  of  spirit  which  are  the 
marks  of  the  West  rather  than  the  South.  It  is  a  proverb 
of  the  mission  schools  that  elsewhere  the  negro  boy  will 
take  a  whipping  from  a  white  teacher  more  graciously  than 
from  one  of  his  own  race.  He  has  been  used  to  white 
whippings.  In  the  West  it  is  not  so,  and  he  resents  them. 
There  the  negro  teacher  has  an  advantage  in  discipline. 
Within  a  few  years  a  negro  has  been  elected  by  a  majority 
of  white  votes  to  the  Texas  legislature.^  Public  provision 
for  the  schooling  of  the  race  in  these  Western  states  tends 
to  be  equable  and  ample,  and  to  include  high  schools.  On 
the  other  hand  the  husthng  Westerner  is  less  patient  with 
the  negro's  deficiencies  than  is  the  easy-going  Southerner. 
The  West  puts  him  under  sterner  tests  of  fitness  for  eco- 
nomic competition. 

•  See  Smith,  "  Village  Improvement,"  etc..  The  Outlook,  Mar.  31,  1900. 

fioTl 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 


Aristocrat  vs.  Poor  White 

Other  divergence  of  practises  have  an  historical  expla- 
nation. The  former  slaveholder  and  his  children  gencr- 
„.      .  ally  put  a   far  higher  estimate  upon  negro 

Causes  of  capacity  and   social   usefulness   than   do   the 

Variations  in  descendants  of  the  poor  whites.  The  former 
en  imen  knows  that  slave  energy  and  intelligence,  as 

well  as  slave  muscle,  conducted  many  an  old  plantation. 
He  has  intimate  personal  ties  linking  him  to  the  freedman. 
He  appreciates  the  virtues  of  the  negro,  depends  upon  his 
services  and  "  likes  to  have  him  'round."  He  continues 
largely  his  sense  of  responsibility  for  the  negro  in  need. 
In  hunger,  sickness,  grief,  and  struggle,  the  old-time 
Southerner  has  been  the  negro's  most  frequent  friend,  and 
has  shown  toward  him  a  million  kindnesses  to  every  one 
which  has  come  from  the  long-distance  philanthropy  of  the 
North.  And  he  takes  his  own  superiority  so  much  for 
granted  that  he  feels  no  need  of  asserting  it  aggressively. 

The  white  masses,  on  the  other  hand,  hate  the  negro,  who 
anciently  shared  his  master's  contempt  for  them  as  a  land- 
Racial  Bitter-  ^^^^  class.  Now  the  tables  are  turned,  and 
ness  of  "Poor  the  poor  whites  of  former  days  are  in  politi- 
Whites  g^l     power    throughout    almost    the    entire 

South.  Tillman,  Vardaman,  and  Jeff  Davis  of  Arkansas 
are  their  prophets.  Theirs  are  the  policies  which  are 
now  drawing  the  color-line  more  rigidly  and  are  increas- 
ingly narrowing  political  privileges  by  law.  The  man 
who  cannot  get  his  superiority  taken  for  granted  feels 
that  he  must  shake  his  fist  in  the  negro's  face  and  vocifer- 
ate, "  He's  got  to  respect  my  color." 

The  conflicting  practises  of  these  two  classes  are  every- 
where apparent  throughout  the  South.     The  daughter  of 

[102] 


THE    SIFTING    OF    SOUTHERN    SENTIMENT 


the  "  first  family  "  may  greet  her  colored  maid  with  a  kiss 
in  the  sight  of  the  whole  city.  Athens,  the  seat  of  the 
State  University  of  Georgia  —  a  state  which  generally  is 
degrading  its  colored  schools  —  supports  a  negro  high 
school  with  a  curriculum  identical  with  that  of  the  white, 
including  Latin.  The  Northern  critic  of  Tillman  will  find 
nothing  to  add  to  what  the  Southern  conservative  journals 
say  about  him.  Witness  the  following  from  the  leading 
paper  of  South  Carolina,  The  Columbia  State: 

If  there  is  more  ill  feeling  between  the  races  in 
South  Carolina  than  there  was  ten  years  ago,  those 
that  have  done  most  to  create  ill  feeling  and  suspicion 
are  responsible,  and  Tillman  is  chief  of  that  class. 

The  negroes  have  in  ten  years  made  no  opposition, 
offered  no  resistance  to  the  white  man's  absolute  con- 
trol of  every  department  of  government.  None  ex- 
cept Tillman  fears  that  they  will  ever  attempt  to 
dominate  in  the  South.  But  Tillman's  speeches  and 
Tom  Dixon's  play,  "  The  Clansman,"  are  breeders  of 
race  hatred.  They  incite  the  more  ignorant  and 
vicious  of  both  races  to  greater  antagonism.  That 
real  trouble  has  not  resulted  is  that  intelligent  public 
sentiment  condemns  the  agitation. 

John  Sharp  WilHams  says  that  ninety  out  of  a  hun- 
dred negroes  are  peaceable,  law-abiding,  and  work. 
Is  it  unnatural  that  these  should  feel  aggrieved  and 
discouraged  when  classed,  by  men  having  the  ear  of 
the  country,  with  vagrants,  thieves,  and  ravishers.? 
Injustice  is  certain  to  beget  animosity.  Do  the  people 
of  the  South  in  town  or  country  court  animosity  be- 
tween the  races.'' 

From   the   beginning   the   best   friends    and   helpers    of 
NortheiTi   missionary   enterprise  in  the   South   have  been 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

men  of  such  views,  the  choice  representatives  of  its  old 
regime,  its  "  high  men."  The  Southern  churches  most 
faithful  to  the  negro's  spiritual  interest  have  been  those 
reputed  most  aristocratic.  To  this  day  the  Episcopal 
Church  refuses  to  recognize  the  ecclesiastical  segregation 
of  the  races.  In  conservative  Charleston  the  colored 
patron  may  still  occupy  a  seat  anywhere  in  a  street  car 
if  he  gets  it  first.  It  is  in  the  new  cities  developed  by 
Northern  capital  and  dominated  by  the  laboring  class 
that  the  color-line  becomes  brutally  aggressive.  I  am 
personally  familiar  with  a  group  of  communities  in  the 
Southwest,  where  for  years  no  negro  has  been  allowed  to 
stay  over  night:  without  exception  they  are  railroad  or 
mining  centers  or  else  Northern  settlements. 

This  familiarity  and  liking  between  the  old-time  South- 
erner and  the  negro  has  its  bad  side,  in  that  it  is  the  con- 
Systematic  tinning  ground  of  permanent  and  systematic 
Miscegenation  but  illicit  unions  between  white  men  and 
colored  women.  In  the  more  conservative  communities 
concubinage  is  still  frequent.  Of  more  than  one  great 
planter  have  I  heard  it  said,  "  Why,  he  has  children  in 
every  cabin  on  the  place."  Within  a  few  years  a  distin- 
guished Charlestonian  —  a  member  of  the  school  board  — 
died  and  was  buried  from  the  home  of  the  negro  mother 
of  his  children.  It  was  the  only  domicile  he  had.  The 
children  were  called  out  of  the  mission  school  to  attend 
his  death-bed,  but  the  white  schools  closed  for  his  funeral. 
The  mission  schools  have  hundreds  of  cases  annually  where 
white  men  recognize  their  responsibility  for  the  children  of 
their  negro  families  and  pay  their  educational  bills.  Not 
infrequently  they  send  letters  full  of  parental  concern 
and  admonition.     Such  relations  are  perfectly  well  known 

and  widely  condoned,  the  possession  of  a  colored  family 

__ 


THE    SIFTING    OF    SOUTHERN    SENTIMENT 

often  being  no  bar  to  honorable  church-membership  nor 
frequently  to  subsequent  marriage  into  the  best  white 
families. 

The  one  alien  widely  scattered  throughout  the  South 
is  the  Jew.  He  lacks  something  of  the  Anglo-Saxon's 
RaceMbcture  strong  race  feeling  and,  partly  for  commer- 
with  Semite  cial  reasons,  often  draws  the  color-line 
and  Latin  loosely.      In   a   Mississippi   negro   school   of 

three  hundred  pupils  I  found  by  actual  count  that  a  full 
tenth  were  manifestly  of  Hebrew  blood.  In  regions  settled 
by  the  Latin  races  too — notably  New  Orleans  —  race 
mixture  has  gone  further  than  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  South. 
The  fear  that  Italian  and  other  immigration  from  the 
South  of  Europe  would  lead  to  still  more  excessive  admix- 
ture is  one  of  the  deepest  grounds  of  Southern  dread  of 
their  coming.  In  Charleston  and  New  Orleans  I  have 
even  seen  Chinese  negroes. 

Now  animosity  and  dislike  between  the  masses  of  both 
races  is  a  bar  to  such  miscegenation,  and  thus  has  its 
useful  side.  It  makes  rude  place  for  those  ideals  of  race 
purity  which  may  come  to  have  personal  sanction  and 
moral  meaning  both  for  negro  and  white.  The  clergy  and 
press  are  plucking  up  new  courage  for  bold  speech  on  this 
matter.  Mr.  Ray  Stannard  Baker  tells  me  that  his  recent 
searching  treatment  of  sex  relations  between  the  races  ^ 
has  brought  him  commendation,  especially  from  Southern 
correspondents.  Thus  though  the  stream  of  illicit  blood 
mixture  flows  steadily  on,  it  Is  somewhat  checked  by  these 
new  eddies  and  cross  currents. 

In  indiscriminate  bounty,  too,  and  his  lax  patience  with 
inefficient  labor,  the  tender  mercies  of  the  old-time  South- 
erner have  been  cruel  to  the  negro.  After  all,  the  sterner 
'  See  Following  the  Color-Line,  p.  164  ff. 

fiosl 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

demands  of  the  new  South  are  more  honorable  to  man- 
hood. The  hurhng  of  the  race  back  on  itself  by  means 
The  Color-  °^  ^^^  tightly  drawn  color-line  has  taught  it 

line  and  the  that  great  lesson  of  self-help.    Within  his  own 

Lesson  of  Self-    people  the  negro  has  made  hopeful  progress 
^  in  capacity  for  leadership.     He  is  beginning 

to  catch  the  knack  of  cooperation  and  to  learn  the  art  of 
group  strength,  which,  rather  than  individual  capacity,  is 
the  secret  of  white  race  superiority.  The  plebeian  South 
has  imposed  these  tests  upon  him  in  no  pedagogical  spirit. 
In  a  thousand  ways  its  demands  are  unequal,  arbitrary, 
and  too  severe,  yet  the  wrath  of  men  still  praises  God. 
Each  of  the  contradictory  class  policies  toward  the  negro 
is  contributing  good  as  well  as  evil  to  the  race  problem. 

Em'ployer  vs.  Competitor 

These  class  attitudes  are  crossed  and  complicated  by 
others  of  economic  origin.  It  is  the  general  law  that  race 
Bitterness  on  a  antagonism  is  bitterest  between  people  on  a 
Common  Com-  common  competitive  level.  The  present  land- 
petitive  Level  holder  or  employer  not  only  frequently  car- 
ries over  the  kindly  spirit  of  the  old  master  class,  but  he 
naturally  regards  the  negro  as  an  economic  asset  from 
which  he  derives  profit.  On  the  contrary,  the  white  laborer 
frequently  covets  the  negro's  job  on  the  farm  or  in  the 
factory.  He  envies  his  rapidly  acquired  prosperity ;  or 
hates  him  as  an  industrial  disturber  and  strike  breaker. 
It  has  been  frequently  noted  that  the  relations  of  the  races 
are  most  amicable  in  the  blackest  belts  where  the  white 
laboring  class  is  totally  absent.  The  political  and  social 
attitude  of  the  poor  whites  described  in  the  previous  sec- 
tion has  an  historical  origin.     Its  chief  and  growing  root 

— - 


THE    SIFTING    OF    SOUTHERN    SENTIMENT 

of  bitterness  is  the  actual  progress  of  the  negro  and  his 
new  importance  as  an  economic  factor  receiving  a  coveted 
share  of  the  wealth  of  the  South.  And  this  economic 
jealousy  will  grow  tenser  as  the  ambitions  of  either  race 
are  quickened. 

Industrial  Employer  vs.  Planter 

There    are    also    different    attitudes   within    the  master 

classes.     A  great  struggle  for  labor  is  going  on  between 

^        ^.^.  the  mine  and  factory  and  the  Southern  farm. 

Competition  .  .  .        » 

between  Em-       The  negro  is  a  new  industrial  factor.     His 

ployers  for  employer   likes   him   because   he   is   an    able- 

egro  a  or  bodied  and  good-natured  laborer  to  whom 
the  color-line  permits  the  payment  of  less  than  current 
■wages,  and  who  can  frequently  be  played  against  the  labor 
unions.  The  negro  laborer  was  defended  by  an  over- 
whelming majority  of  speakers  at  the  great  Immigration 
Congress  at  Nashville  as  superior  to  any  class  of  immi- 
grants now  available  in  America.  Contractor  Oliver  de- 
clared that  he  could  take  the  chain-gangs  of  the  South  and 
build  the  Panama  Canal.  The  negro  in  agriculture  on  the 
other  hand  is  an  old  factor.  Now  that  he  has  heard  the 
call  of  the  city  he  demands  more  than  the  former  agri- 
cultural wage.  The  demand  for  him  in  industry  has  seri- 
ously disturbed  agricultural  conditions.  The  planter  re- 
sents this  and  tries  to  fix  him  to  the  soil  by  securing  his 
perpetual  ignorance,  by  intimidation  and  violence  and 
repressive  law;  or  else  by  unwilling,  childish  concessions, 
—  extra  holidays,  a  mule  to  ride,  whisky  —  poor  substi- 
tutes for  the  real  betterment  of  rural  conditions.  Thus 
the  feud  between  industry  and  agriculture  over  the  negro 

is  very  deep  and  with  the  growth  of  Southern  cities  tends 

-— 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

to  merge  into  a  permanent  difference  of  opinion  and  policy 
between  the  urban  and  rural  districts.  Already  it  has 
taken  deep  hold  of  politics. 

Business  Interests  vs.  Politician 

The  money-making  element  in  the  South  to-day  strongly 
desires  racial  peace.  It  wants  to  exploit  the  natural  and 
human  resources  of  its  section  for  its  own 
maker's  profit  undisturbed   by    sentimental   consider- 

Denunciation  ations  of  any  sort.  Its  class-consciousness 
^  "^^  subdues  its  race-consciousness.     For  its  pur- 

pose the  white  laborer  frequently  is  inferior 
to  the  colored  and  gets  no  superior  treatment.  As  the 
manager  of  a  Louisiana  sugar  plantation  put  it  to  me, 
"  The  white  man  who  works  down  here  is  the  same  as  the 
nigger." 

On  the  contrary,  the  average  politician  gets  office  in  the 
South  by  appealing  to  the  race  prejudice  of  the  poor 
white  who  holds  the  power  of  the  ballot.  Negrophobia  is 
his  chief  stock  in  trade.  The  ordinary  political  campaign 
is  a  contest  to  see  who  can  best  abuse  the  race.  Fre- 
quently the  political  bark  is  worse  than  its  bite,  but 
generally  the  animosity  stirred  by  it  leads  to  some  new 
anti-negro  measure  or  other.  The  man  of  practical  com- 
mercial interest  detects  the  selfishness  and  insincerity  of  all 
this  and  resents  the  preoccupation  of  the  South  by  it  to 
the  detriment  of  its  material  progress.  One  finds  therefore 
the  meetings  of  manufacturers'  or  commercial  clubs  loud 
with  the  denunciation  of  the  "  demagogue  "  as  a  chief  dis- 
turber of  Israel.  Undoubtedly  he  has  done  much  to  ag- 
gravate and  distort  the  race  situation. 

Yet  the  case  has  another  side;    for  what  is  politics  but 

— - 


THE    SIFTING    OF    SOUTHERN    SENTIMENT 

the  natural  and  inevitable  arena  for  the  expression  of  the 
aspirations  and  struggles  of  any  unprivileged  group  in 
p  J-,.    .,  a   democracy?      The    poor   white    himself   is 

Inevitable  such  a  struggler  against  the  ancient  aristo- 

Arena  of  Race     cratic  organization  of  Southern  society.     He 
^^  has  virtually  won  his  victory,  but  has   not 

yet  got  his  eyes  clear  of  the  dust  of  battle,  and  in  its 
brutal  heat  does  not  consider  that  it  is  unworthy  to  rise 
by  crowding  another  class  down.  Yet  his  example  to  the 
negro  to-day  is  wiser  than  the  conciliatory  counsel  and 
somewhat  faint  praise  of  the  employing  and  commercial 
classes.  Class  struggle  must  get  into  politics.  It  is  futile 
to  forbid  it.  The  negro  cannot  long  be  kept  out.  Till- 
man's "  Organize !  organize !  "  applies  to  him,  too.  The 
poor  white  marks  his  upward  struggle  by  asserting  his 
superiority  to  the  negro,  but  for  all  that  he  is  fighting  a 
common  battle  for  democracy.  Humanity,  it  seems,  must 
go  forward  by  detachments  and  the  unprivileged  Anglo- 
Saxon  blazes  the  way  for  all. 

Man  vs.  Woman 

Women  generally  draw  the  color-line  tighter  than  men. 
Perhaps  one  sex  is  temperamentally  given  to  applying  its 
Q  ,  p  J  convictions  more  rigidly  than  the  other.  In 
Social  Inter-  the  South  women  have  abundant  motives 
course  for-  for   rigidity,  as   appeared  in   the  discussion 

of  miscegenation.  At  any  rate  the  relations 
between  white  and  colored  men,  in  matters  which  do  not 
involve  the  other  sex,  are  surprisingly  unrestrained  and 
often  intimate.  All  sorts  of  business  dealings  are  every- 
where recognized,  and  "  business  "  frequently  is  made  to 
cover  the  comradeship  of  minds  and  hearts  in  other  com- 

"  [Too] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

mon  interests.  I  have  known  a  Southern  gentleman  who 
by  preference  frequently  spends  the  evenings  in  his  office 
in  conversation  with  a  colored  friend.  This  companion- 
ship is  manifestly  more  congenial  than  those  of  the  society 
functions  from  which  he  gladly  escapes.  It  is  not  called 
"  social  equality,"  but  it  goes  deeper  than  much  that  is. 
In  accordance  with  this  tendency  to  limit  the  ban  to  formal 
social  intercourse,  I  have  heard  a  white  Federal  office-holder 
try  to  explain  away  the  objectionable  features  of  the  fa- 
mous White  House  luncheon.  According  to  his  version 
it  occurred  not  in  the  White  House  proper  but  in  the  execu- 
tive offices.  Mr.  Washington  happened  to  be  calling  when 
the  President's  luncheon  time  came.  Mr.  Roosevelt  ac- 
cordingly sent  out  for  two  trays  of  food.  The  two  ate 
simultaneously,  but  not  at  the  same  table !  Now  thousands 
of  Southern  working  men  and  farmers  daily  sit  on  curbs 
or  in  fence  corners  and  dine  out  of  dinner-pails  along  with 
their  negro  fellow  workers.  The  Washington  incident  was 
held  to  be  a  parallel  case  having  no  social  implications. 

The  Rational  vs.  the  Passionate 

These  are  the  familiar  temperamental  classes  of  any 
population,  and  the  race  issue  has  emphasized  their  diver- 
Tempera-  gence  in  the  South.  To  the  Northern 
mental  Classes  stranger  Southerners  naturally  fall  into  two 
classes  —  those  who  can  discuss  the  negro  rationally  and 
those  who  cannot.  The  latter  is  much  the  larger  class. 
An  habitual  tendency  to  look  backward  and  an  abnormal 
tension  of  mind,  frequently  bordering  on  hysteria,  has  char- 
acterized the  popular  attitude  on  this  matter.  It  has  been 
a  prolonged  case  of  nerves.     Yet  the  other  class  is  surely 

growing.    With  the  cooling  of  passion  and  the  fresh  prac- 

-_ 


THE    SIFTING    OF    SOUTHERN    SENTIMENT 

tical  achievements  of  the  South  a  new  type  of  leader  is 
emerging. 

He  is  marked  by  a  certain  scientific  mindedness  in 
intellectual  approach  and  mental  habit.  I  mean  by 
the  scientific  minded  man,  one  who  observes  closely, 
who  has  mental  patience,  who  thinks  with  his  brain 
and  not  with  his  emotions,  who  is  satisfied  with  the 
whole  truth  and  nothing  less.  His  reverence  is  for 
the  past,  but  it  is  tempered  with  the  common-sense 
patriotism  which  gives  him  enthusiasm  for  the  future. 
He  is  at  home  in  the  republic,  and  a  sense  of  mastery 
of  the  methods  of  his  age,  and  perception  of  his  kin- 
ship to  all  the  world,  have  freed  his  energies  and 
widened  his  vision.  He  has  not  attained  wholly  the 
ideal  mental  condition.  He  would  be  rather  lonesome 
in  America,  if  he  had  reached  it;  but  he  is  moving 
that  way.^ 

This  attitude  is  sometimes  associated  and  sometimes  con- 
fused with  those  preoccupations  of  the  commercial  spirit 
which  cares  little  for  any  struggle  for  ideals.  Yet  it  is 
itself  essentially  founded  on  ideals  and  supported  by 
patient  faith  that  time  will  show  the  right.  Its  broadest 
representatives  confess  its  religious  basis. 

"  Good  "  vs.  Good 

It  is  not  fair  to  judge  the  South  by  those  whom  It 
already  recognizes  and  repudiates  as  bad.  The  moral 
Conscience  tragedy  of  the  race  situation  is  rather  that 

draws  the  the  conscience  of  the  average  good  man  is  two- 

Color-Iine  colored.    This  is  always  the  case  when  a  "  su- 

perior "  group  of  population  erects  social  barriers  against 

»  Alderman,  "The  Growing  South,"  The  World's  Work,  June,  1908, 
p.  10382. 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

an  "  inferior  "  one ;  it  is  doubly  serious  when  the  inferior 
group  also  belongs  to  another  and  a  despised  race.  A 
double  moral  standard  is  then  inevitable.  Right  becomes 
one  thing  within  and  another  without  the  racial  pale. 
Sanctions  which  protect  the  members  of  one  class  fail  for 
the  other. 

Thus  in  the  South  "  Thou  shalt  not  kill,"  "  Thou  shalt 
not  commit  adultery,"  "  Thou  shalt  not  steal,"  "  Thou 
shalt  not  bear  false  witness  against  thy  neighbor,"  mean 
one  thing  as  between  white  and  white  and  another  as  be- 
tween white  and  black.  The  negro's  misdemeanors  become 
crimes  ;  the  white's  crimes  shrink  into  misdemeanors.  Con- 
science itself  fails  to  operate  equally  as  between  the  races. 
Worst  of  all,  perhaps,  the  boasted  Anglo-Saxon  sense 
of  fair  play  is  largely  obliterated  by  race  prejudice. 
Blunting  of  Bryce  notes  that 
Characteristic 

Anglo-Saxon  Even  between  civilized  peoples,  such  as 

Vi^^u^s  Germans  and  Russians,  or  Spaniards  and 

Frenchmen,  there  is  a  disposition  to  be  unduly  an- 
noyed by  traits  and  habits  which  are  not  so  much 
culpable  in  themselves  as  distasteful  to  men  con- 
structed on  different  lines.  This  sense  of  annoyance 
is  naturally  more  intense  toward  a  race  so  widely  re- 
moved from  the  modern  European  as  the  Kafirs  are. 
Whoever  has  traveled  among  people  of  a  race  greatly 
weaker  than  his  own  must  have  sometimes  been  con- 
scious of  an  impatience  or  irritation  which  arises  when 
the  native  fails  to  understand  or  neglects  to  obey  the 
command  given.  The  sense  of  his  superior  intelli- 
gence and  energy  of  will  produces  in  the  European 
a  sort  of  tyrannous  spirit,  which  will  not  condescend 
to  argue  with  the  native,  but  overbears  him  by  sheer 
force,  and  is  prone  to  resort  to  physical  coercion. 
Even  just  men,  who  have  the  deepest  theoretical  re- 

[in] 


THE    SIFTING    OF    SOUTHERN    SENTIMENT 

spect  for  human  rights  are  apt  to  be  carried  away 
by  the  consciousness  of  superior  strength,  and  to 
become  despotic  if  not  harsh.^ 

President  Alderman  claims  that  the  South's  dealings 
with  the  negro  since  the  war  have  shown  "  a  juster  and 
larger  policy  than  was  ever  before  pursued  by  higher 
groups  toward  backward  and  lower  groups  in  any  civiliza- 
tion." This  may  be  true.  The  fact  remains  that  the 
South  in  the  large  has  treated  the  negro  just  as  other 
superior  groups  have  treated  their  alleged  inferiors, 
namely,  according  to  a  distinct  and  lower  moral  code  than 
pertains  between  equals.  Only  the  aggressive  and  vital 
goodness  of  a  small  minority  has  been  able  to  make  its 
moral  practises  universalistic  and  democratic. 

I  recall  once  being  in  conversation  with  a  courteous 
gentleman  on  a  Florida  railway  platform.  A  careless 
negro  driver  threw  a  horse  in  crossing  the  track.  Instantly 
the  courteous  gentleman  became  a  raging  fiend.  "  If  that 
was  my  horse  I  'd  get  a  revolver  and  beat  that  nigger 
within  an  inch  of  his  life,  and  if  he  resisted  I  'd  shoot  him." 
Note  the  moral  splendor  of  it !  He  would  take  bodily  ven- 
geance for  a  casual  error.  The  law  calls  that  criminal  as- 
sault. He  would  use  the  advantage  of  his  weapon  against 
an  unarmed  man.  Anglo-Saxon  instincts  call  that  contempt- 
ible cowardice.  He  would  kill  the  negro  if  he  resisted.  The 
Ten  Commandments  call  that  murder.  Yet  this  is  not  an 
exceptional  incident.  It  represents  the  attitude  of  thou- 
sands of  Southern  whites,  particularly  of  the  younger  gen- 
eration. That  it  allows  and  perpetuates  such  moral  con- 
tradictions in  the  lives  of  average  good  men  is  probably  the 
most  disastrous  thing  about  the  Southern  racial  policy. 

*  Bryce,  Impressions  of  South  Africa,  p.  442. 
8  [113] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 


"  The  Negro  a  Beast  "  vs.  "  Our  Brother  in  Black  " 

These  divergent  attitudes  and  practises  naturally  jfind 

formulation  and  justification  in  various   theoretical  esti- 

-..  .  mates  of  the  negro  and  the  ultimate  meaning 

Divergent  .  .  °  '=' 

Views  of  of  his  existence.      Some  seven  years  ago  an 

Negro  agent  brought   a  book  to  my   door  entitled 

Capacity  „  r^j^^  "^egvo  a  Beast."     Since  then  I  have 

found  it  from  Virginia  to  Texas.  It  is  a  strange  mixture 
of  Darwinism  and  Biblical  arguments  in  justification  of 
the  most  brutal  racial  antipathy.  During  the  opening 
years  of  the  twentieth  century  it  has  become  the  Scripture 
of  tens  of  thousands  of  poor  whites,  and  its  doctrine  is 
maintained  with  an  appalling  stubbornness  and  persistence. 
Of  course  this  is  not  the  traditional,  nor  is  it  by  any  means 
the  dominant,  Southern  view  of  the  negro.  The  com- 
moner thought  is  that  he  is  a  man,  but  radically  inferior  to 
the  white  in  certain  crucial  capacities,  especially  those  for 
practical  achievement  and  for  ideal  aspiration  and  fel- 
lowship. For  the  higher  realms  of  culture,  for  the  more 
refined  contacts  of  human  intercourse  and  for  political 
authority  he  is  held  to  be  naturally  unfit. 

Probably  few  Southerners  could  be  found  willing  to 
confess  so  favorable  an  estimate  of  negro  racial  capacity 
as  that  proclaimed  by  the  typical  Northern  idealist  and 
now  defended  by  eminently  respectable  sociological  author- 
ity. Nevertheless  there  is  a  group  of  men  of  commanding 
influence  whose  point  of  emphasis  makes  their  statement 
of  Southern  doctrine  take  a  radically  new  sound  and  sig- 
nificance. Whatever  their  conception  of  the  negro's  natu- 
ral deficiencies,  in  respect  to  the  things  xchich  count  for 
most  they  assert  his  fitness  for  full  participation  in  the 
highest  life  of  man.     He  is  religiously  capable ;    his  Chris- 

[nJ] 


THE    SIFTING    OF    SOUTHERN    SENTIMENT 

tian  experience  entitles  him  to  Christian  fellowship.  This 
is  the  true  clue  to  any  present  or  future  policy  toward  him. 
Bishop  Bratten  puts  it  thus :  "  The  negro  is  capable  of 
development  to  a  point  whose  limit  I  have  not  yet  discov- 
ered " ;  while  the  late  Bishop  Galloway  said,  "  As  the 
negro  is  a  man  and  a  brother,  embraced  in  the  divine 
scheme  of  human  redemption,  we  cannot  exclude  him  from 
any  of  the  privileges  and  agencies  that  may  fit  him  for 
service  in  the  Kingdom  of  God."  Just  because  they  are  so 
sound  on  the  main  issue,  it  is  possible  for  men  of  such 
views  to  accede  to  the  popular  practises  of  their  section 
in  non-essentials  Hke  formal  racial  recognition.  Their 
essential  rightness  of  spirit  should  be  recognized  —  and  is 
—  both  by  negroes  and  their  less  hampered  Northern 
friends.  Dr.  Du  Bois  certainly  does  not  doubt  that  Bishop 
Galloway  accorded  him  the  full  rights  of  spiritual  man- 
hood, freely  and  without  condescension,  and  that  the  bishop 
showed  it  beyond  peradventure  —  whatever  his  habits  as 
to  eating  with  negroes.  No  essential  barrier  separates 
the  men  of  different  color  or  section  who  view  the  race 
situation  from  the  standpoint  of  this  common  emphasis. 
Practically  speaking,  the  emphasis  is  the  doctrine. 

When  all  classifications  are  exhausted  it  remains  to  be 
said  that  the  characteristic  Southerner  is  full  of  surprising 
Individual  and  often  charming  inconsistencies.     What- 

Exceptions  ever  his  natural  or  theoretical  attitude  his 

color-line  weaves  itself  into  complex  patterns  which  are  the 
despair  of  the  alien.  I  recall  the  perplexity  of  a  Northern 
minister  who  had  recently  taken  a  Southern  church. 
"  They  tell  me,"  he  complained,  "  that  I  must  n't  shake 
hands  with  a  negro  lest  I  lose  caste;  yet  here  comes 
Dr.  B from  Charleston  and  shakes  hands  with  a  col- 
ored woman  in  the  middle  of  Main  Street.     He  pinches  her 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

baby's  cheeks  and  talks  with  her  for  ten  minutes,  and  I 
don't  understand  it."  Indeed  it  is  just  those  aliens  who 
lack  the  inner  sense  of  fitness  in  interracial  conduct  who 
are  most  apt  to  fall  back  upon  a  rigid  observance  of  an 
arbitrary  code.  Because  they  have  no  other  guide  to  con- 
duct, the  "  spoiled  Yankee  "  and  the  poor  white  draw  the 
color-line  the  tighter. 

II.    THE  COLOR-LINE 

We  have  persisted  through  the  tedious  story  of  how  geo- 
graphical, historical,  economic,  and  vocational  differences 
The  Conven-  enter  into  the  race  situation ;  how  sex,  char- 
tional  Creed  of  acter,  and  theory  make  a  difference  in  the 
the  South  practical  attitudes  of  Southerners  toward  the 

negro.  This  was  necessary  because  it  is  loudly  proclaimed 
that  the  South  is  absolutely  unanimous  on  this  subject. 
Nothing  could  be  further  from  the  truth.  There  is  a  con- 
ventional creed  to  which  most  Southerners  subscribe.  No 
legitimate  blood  mixture  of  the  races  is  to  be  tolerated. 
There  is  to  be  complete  non-intercourse  between  them  in 
the  ideal  interests  of  life.  In  the  home,  the  church,  the 
school,  which  are  the  central  shrines  of  these  ideal  inter- 
ests, they  are  to  remain  separate.  To  enforce  these  sepa- 
rations political  power  must  remain  in  the  hands  of  the 
whites. 

The  vast  practical  authority  of  this  creed  is  not  to  be 
denied.  It  makes  an  immense  psychological  impression  on 
both  races. 

On  the  one  hand  there  is  that  wide-spread  loss  of  the 
The  Negro's  white  man's  keener  sense  of  justice  and  social 
Subjective  purity  in  the  presence  of  an  inferior  popu- 

Handicap  lation,  which  has   already  been  illustrated; 

on   the   other,  the  negro's   "  resultant   self-contempt   and 


THE    SIFTING    OF    SOUTHERN    SENTIMENT 

despair.  In  the  presence  of  the  arrogant  white,  flaunting 
insultingly  his  superior  powers,  the  despised  blacks  de- 
generate into  baser  beings  than  they  would  otherwise  be- 
come. '  Dirt  in  his  eyes,  they  soon  become  as  dirt  in  their 
own.'  And  they  become  positively  enfeebled  by  their 
consciousness  of  inferiority."  ^  This  description  of  the 
South  African  situation  absolutely  fits  our  own  color-line. 
Its  existence  is  an  insidious  attack  upon  the  foundations 
of  manhood  in  the  negro  man  and  of  virtue  in  the  negro 
woman.  For  in  spite  of  all  denials  a  good  part  of  the 
South's  policy  is  not  a  single-hearted  attempt  at  racial 
separation  for  the  protection  of  white  civilization,  but  a 
deliberate  purpose  to  humiliate  the  negro.  It  is  aimed  all 
too  accurately  at  his  self-respect.  Over  against  this  the 
South  sometimes  pleads  the  negro's  narrower  economic 
opportunity  in  the  North  —  as  though  the  two  things 
were  comparable !  "  We  will  not  play  with  him,"  it  says ; 
"  you  will  not  work  with  him."  But  man  does  not  live  by 
bread  alone.  It  is  just  the  refusal  of  fellowship  in  the 
ideal  interests  of  life  —  symbolized  by  the  social  color-line 
—  which  is  the  bitterness  of  the  negro's  cup.  The  denial 
of  equality  in  these  spheres  chokes  the  very  breath  of 
freedom  and  moral  life.  That  it  has  not  strangled  it  alto- 
gether; that  indeed  the  negro's  race  pride  has  shown 
rapid  and  hopeful  increase  is  due  partly  to  his  encourage- 
ment by  individual  Southerners,  but  chiefly  to  the  fact  that 
he  knew  that  a  great  section  of  the  nation  was  backing 
his  struggle  as  a  freeman.  However  Utopian  its  faith  and 
practically  remote  its  help,  it  has  been  an  immeasurable 
reenforcement  of  the  negro's  inner  resources  that  the  North 
believed  in  him  —  that  Abraham  Lincoln's  picture  was 
looking  down  from  the  dark  walls  of  his  hundred  thousand 
^  Alston,  White  Man's  Work  in  Asia  and  Africa,  p.  88. 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

cabins.  The  backing  of  the  moral  sentiment  of  the  nation's 
idealists  is  psychologically  crucial ;  and  never  more  so  than 
now. 

Again,  the  unequal  dealing  of  the   state  between   the 
races  in  practical  matters  —  a  difference  everywhere  con- 
fessed and  excused  —  puts  an  almost  impos- 
Ihe  Negro  s        sible  handicap  on  the  negro.     Apart  from  all 
Handicap  atrocities  and  exceptionally  oppressive  deal- 

ings —  in  the  whole  realm  of  social  better- 
ment, the  color-line  condemns  the  negro  to  take  the  leav- 
ings. What  disadvantage  has  the  negro?  Much  every 
way ;  chiefly  perhaps  in  sewers  and  sidewalks ;  in  schools 
and  security.  His  health  is  socially  penalized  by  a  com- 
parative and  sometimes  absolute  lack  of  sanitary  provision 
for  him.  His  schools  are  "  good  enough  for  a  nigger." 
His  property  and  his  life  suffer  a  higher  risk  than  that  of 
the  average  white  citizen.  This  goes  deeper  than  the 
withholding  of  specially  granted  franchise  privileges ;  it 
limits  common  justice.  Now  the  sociologist  teaches  us 
that  in  a  democratic  state  the  little  more  and  the  little  less 
of  opportunity,  working  out  their  results  through  long 
periods,  produce  the  vastest  social  changes.^  The  ultimate 
result  of  the  Southerner's  policy  cannot  but  be  fatal  to 
millions  of  American  negroes  who  might  otherwise  have 
been  saved  to  the  nation.  These  are  matters,  too,  which 
the  state  alone  can  control.  Private  philanthropy,  near 
or  remote,  is  virtually  helpless.  Absolutely  the  only 
ground  of  hope  for  him  is  the  conviction  that  the  South's 
better  spirit  of  justice  and  humanity  will  come  to  the 
kingdom  in  time  to  save  him. 

Yet  no  creed  is  so  practically  significant  as  the  behavior 
of  those  who  hold  it.    In  spite  of  the  impressive  sentimental 
*  Ross,  Foundation  of  Sociology,  p.  202. 

[ns] 


THE    SIFTING    OF    SOUTHERN    SENTIMENT 

unity  of  the  South,  the  general  race  situation  is  actually 
dominated  by  profound  and  far-reaching  differences  in  its 
A  Margin  of  conduct  which  our  previous  discussion  has 
Opportunity  discovered.  Here  and  there  exceptions  to 
the  creed  have  become  the  local  or  individual  rule ;  whole 
classes  and  areas  have  signally  modified  it ;  while  almost 
everywhere  it  is  so  tempered  in  daily  application  as  to 
leave  wide  margins  of  opportunity  not  admitted  on  the 
face  of  it. 


in.    CLUES  TO  PROPHECY 

These  differences  of  conduct,  moreover,  are  the  working 
out  of  certain  large  tendencies  which  in  turn  are  reliable 
clues  to  prophecy.  Of  course  the  omens  are  not  all  agreed. 
It  would  be  at  variance  with  human  experience  if  they  were. 
Indeed  some  of  them  are  distinctively  adverse  to  the  hope 
of  interracial  prosperity  and  peace,  and  indicate  that  in 
many  respects  the  situation  will  be  worse  before  it  is 
better. 

On  the  one  hand,  time  is  rapidly  sundering  the  kindlier 
ties  brought  over  from  the  old  regime  and  the  good  under- 
Seoregation  standing  based  upon  the  past  is  dying  out. 
estranges  the  Physical  segregation  and  mental  estrange- 
"^^^®  ment  will  certainly  go  further.     Both  races 

will  develop  an  even  more  extreme  measure  of  irritability 
and  touchiness. 

Over  against  this  evil  tendency  stands  the  prospect  that 
national  ideals  will  be  more  and  more  adequately  inter- 
But  creates  a  preted  to  the  negro  masses  by  their  own 
Demand  for  leaders.  The  negro's  native  capacity,  for 
Negro  Leaders  loyalty  and  his  splendid  patriotism  may  then 
be  relied  on.     In  spite  of  the  color-line  he  may  still  share 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

the  inspirations  and  ideals  of  our  best  life  through  the 
intermediation  of  the  exceptional  minority  of  his  race. 
We  have  noted  a  new  willingness  in  the  South  to  recognize 
the  opportunity  and  responsibility  of  the  exceptional 
negro  and  so  to  cooperate  with  him  for  social  peace  as  to 
preserve  his  racial  pride  and  self-respect.  No  social  class 
nor  struggling  race  "  can  reach  equality  with  other  classes 
and  races  until  its  leaders  can  meet  theirs  on  equal  terms." 
In  all  its  substantial  aspects  this  is  being  admitted.  White 
men  of  standing  are  associated  with  negroes  on  the  Jeanes 
Board  and  as  trustees  of  many  colored  schools.  The  ex- 
ceptional negro  is  widely  accorded  exceptional  treatment, 
and  his  representative  character  is  felt  by  his  race.  Re- 
cently a  Southern  guest  protested  at  the  presence  of  Booker 
Washington  at  the  Belmont  Hotel  Cafe  in  New  York. 
Reporters  rushed  to  interview  the  head  waiter.  "  No,"  he 
said,  "  negroes  are  not  allowed  to  dine  here,  but  with  Mr. 
Washington  it  is  different."  This  particular  exception  is 
not  met  with  in  the  South,  but  others  of  more  practical 
importance  are.  After  all,  the  children  of  the  mind  are 
more  important  than  the  children  of  the  body,  as  old 
Plato  said.  Thus  the  psychical  assimilation  of  the  negro 
to  the  national  type  Is  hopefully  possible.  By  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  moral  and  spiritual  contacts  of  the  races  at 
the  top,  the  masses  need  not  fail  of  the  better  incentives 
of  American  life.  Their  hope  and  self-respect  may  feed 
on  the  recognition  and  privileges  accorded  to  the  excep- 
tional few. 

The  negro  must  expect  a  waning  of  the  favor  of  the 
employing  classes  just  so  far  as  he  ceases  as  a  race  to  be 
tractable  under  industrial  exploitation.  He  has  already 
shown  remarkable  mobility  as  a  laborer  and  a  capacity 
for   quick    response   to    economic    opportunity.      He    has 

[1201 


THE    SIFTING    OF    SOUTHERN    SENTIMENT 


shown  some  hopeful  evidence  of  capacity  for  cooperation 
and  organization.  In  other  words,  he  gives  evidence  of 
Economic  De-  two  of  the  chief  economic  virtues.  It  is  just 
bseSe^o*  his  previous  lack  of  these  which  has  endeared 
the  Employer's  ^im  to  the  employer.  Perhaps  he  has  a  per- 
Favor  manent  temperamental  advantage  in  his  char- 

acteristic good  nature,  and  undoubtedly  his  superior  adap- 
tability to  the  cHmate  of  the  lower  and  hotter  regions  of 
the  South  gives  him  a  certain  permanent  advantage  over 
white  labor.  Nevertheless,  his  newly  learned  virtues  will 
lead  the  employer  to  seek  to  displace  him  with  an  alien 
labor  force,  helpless  through  its  lack  of  economic  experi- 
ence. This  means  bitter  competition  between  the  negro 
and  the  newly  awakened  white  masses  of  the  South.  Exten- 
sive foreign  immigration,  though  not  immediately  prob- 
able, must  be  expected  in  the  long  run.  The  undeveloped 
areas  of  the  lower  South  will  become  industrialized,  and 
the  whole  labor  problem  reach  the  acute  stage  to  which  it 
has  come  in  all  the  more  progressive  sections  of  civilization. 
Hitherto  the  negro  has  had  a  practical  monopoly  as  a 
laborer  in  the  South.  President  Alderman  is  now  un- 
doubtedly right  in  saying  that  "  he  is  yet  to  undergo  the 
fiercest  trials  that  come  to  backward  races  striving  to 
forge  to  the  front  in  an  old  civihzation." 

What  will  be  the  outcome  of  this  sterner  competition? 
It  seems  inevitable  that  in  the  long  run  the  negro  must 
be  recognized  and  enlisted  on  the  side  of  labor. 

As  the  class  struggle  proceeds,  new  lines  will  be  drawn 
But  will  force  which  will  include  the  negro  on  the  side  of 
the  White  the  white  masses.     They  will  have  to  make 

Laborer  to  imite  common  cause  with  him.     They  must  or  lose 
their  battle.    It  will  be  easier  than  in  the  case 
of  any  other  ahen  race;    for  the  negro  already  approxi- 

'  fiiTl 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

mates  to  the  current  standard  of  living  of  his  section.  He 
spends  freely,  like  a  good  American,  and  readily  expands 
his  scale  of  wants.  The  chief  economic  difficulty  to  his  in- 
clusion on  the  side  of  labor  is  thus  absent.  When  the  gap 
between  diverse  standards  of  living  is  once  surmounted, 
racial  animosities  have  repeatedly  given  way  before  the 
mighty  unifying  force  of  class  consciousness.  Labor  or- 
g"anization  has  been  one  of  the  most  important  assimilative 
agencies  in  American  life  and,  in  spite  of  its  errors,  a  chief 
adjunct  of  democracy.  Already  it  has  marshaled  thou- 
sands across  the  color-line.  Socialism,  too,  has  undertaken 
a  distinct  propaganda  among  negroes.  I  do  not  anticipate 
great  practical  results  from  it,  but  it  shows  how  the  wind 
blows.  Thus  the  vastest  movement  of  Southern  civiliza- 
tion —  the  struggle  of  the  white  masses  for  equal  oppor- 
tunity, merges  with  the  world-wide  cause  of  the  unprivi- 
leged. Sooner  or  later  it  will  discover  that  it  must  in- 
clude the  negro  as  well.^ 

The  further  curtailment  of  negro  political  privileges  in 
the  South  is  to  be  expected.  From  the  standpoint  of  white 
P  If  1  P  ■  ■-  supremacy  he  is  tenfold  more  dangerous  now 
leges  will  be  that  he  has  acquired  education  and  property. 
Further  now  that  he  has  developed   race  conscience, 

competent  leadership  and  organs  of  public 
opinion,  than  when  he  was  first  enfranchised.  The  cry  is 
now  widely  raised  that  the  older  disqualifying  legislation 
does  not  go  far  enough.  For  many  years  Georgia  thought 
the  negro  sufficiently  out  of  politics  through  moral  suasion 
and  the  poll-tax  requirement ;  but  Hoke  Smith  became 
governor  on  the  plea  that  legal  disfranchisement  was  still 
necessary.  Mr.  Baker  quotes  an  argument  from  the  editor 
of  the  Huntsville,  Alabama,  Tribune. 

'  Cf.  Commons,  Races  and  Immigrants  in  America,  p.  115. 

[122] 


THE    SIFTING    OF    SOUTHERN    SENTIMENT 

We  thought  (in  1901,  when  the  new  Alabama  Con- 
stitution disfranchising  the  negro  was  under  discus- 
sion), as  we  do  now,  that  the  menace  to  peace,  the 
danger  to  society  and  white  supremacy  was  not  in  the 
ilHterate  negro,  but  in  the  upper  branches  of  negro 
society,  the  educated,  the  man  who  after  ascertaining 
his  political  rights,  forced  the  way  to  assert  them. 

He  continues: 

We,  the  Southern  people,  entertain  no  prejudice 
toward  the  ignorant  per  se  inoffensive  negro.  It  is 
because  we  know  him,  and  for  him  we  entertain  a 
compassion.  But  our  blood  boils  when  the  educated 
negro  asserts  himself  politically.  We  regard  each 
assertion  as  an  unfriendly  encroachment  upon  our 
native  superior  rights,  and  a  daredevil  menace  to  our 
control  of  the  affairs  of  the  state.  In  this  are  we  not 
speaking  the  truth?  Does  not  every  Southern  Cau- 
casian "  to  the  manor  born  "  bear  witness  to  this  ver- 
sion? Hence  we  present  that  the  way  to  dampen 
racial  prejudice,  avert  the  impending  horrors,  is  to 
emasculate  the  negro  politically,  by  repealing  the 
fifteenth  amendment  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States. 

Now  there  is  not  the  slightest  likelihood  that  the 
fifteenth  amendment  will  ever  be  repealed,  yet  there  is  a 
general  desire  throughout  the  nation  to  guard  the  suffrage 
more  strictly,  and  under  cover  of  this  feehng  the  South 
will  undoubtedly  devise  new  legal  barriers  for  the  negro. 

Yet  even  on  this  point  the  tides  do  not  all  run  in  one 
direction.  There  are  elements  in  Southern  life  which  may 
yet  feel  the  need  of  the  negro's  political  assistance.  Even 
in  Georgia  the  argument  has  recently  been  heard  that  dis- 

[123] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

franchisement  may  go  too  fast;    it  may  take  the  negro's 

well-known  conservatism  to  defeat  the  destructive  radical- 

rrn,  XT  11    ism  of  the  poor  whites  at  the  ballot-box.    The 

The  Negro  will     .  •   t        •  j.    i  i 

yet  be  Called       industrialization  of  the  upland  South  and  the 

Back  into  decreasing   proportion   of  negroes  in  it,   al- 

^   '^^  ready    result    in    franker    political    divisions 

within  its  borders  along  the  lines  of  economic  interests, 
and  promises  its  final  detachment  from  the  lower  South  in 
national  politics.  There  will  yet  be  selfish  efforts  there  to 
get  the  negro  into  politics  and  to  use  him  as  a  balance  of 
power  as  in  the  North.  There  are  Southerners,  too,  who 
rest  the  political  future  of  the  negro  on  deeper  theoretical 
and  moral  grounds.  Witness  ex-Congressman  Fleming's 
notable  address  at  the  University  of  Georgia.  He  said, 
"  Without  some  access  to  the  ballot,  present  or  prospec- 
tive, some  participation  in  the  government,  no  inferior 
race  in  an  elective  republic  could  long  protect  itself  against 
reduction  to  slavery  in  many  of  its  substantial  forms." 
The  present  South  is  not  wholly  deaf  to  this  appeal  and 
time  cannot  fail  to  bring  other  recruits  to  its  standard. 

With  the  increase  of  wealth  and  luxury  comes  a  weak- 
ening of  the  democratic  instincts  and  a  new  willingness  to 
Plutocracv  anticipate  the  existence  of  a  permanently  ser- 

adds  New  vile  class  in  the  Republic.     We  must  frankly 

Burdens  confess  the  fact   that  there  are  daily   more 

people  who  want  other  human  beings  to  be  conveniences 
rather  than  men,  and  who  are  glad  to  use  the  race  which 
traditionally  bears  the  badge  of  servitude.  In  the  South  a 
new  plutocratic  version  of  social  inequality  puts  rigidity 
and  harshness  into  the  color-line.  One  would  indeed 
despair  of  his  country  if  he  saw  this  only ;  if  he  could  not 
discern  in  varied  phases  the  progress  of  democracy,  of 
which  the  unifying  work  of  organized  labor  noted  above  is 

[124] 


THE    SIFTING    OF    SOUTHERN    SENTIMENT 


part.  This  movement  is  seen  in  the  new  interest  in  social 
questions,  in  the  widespread  awakening  of  social  conscience 
and  in  manifold  concrete  reforms.  So  strong  is  its  mo- 
mentum in  the  South  that  that  section  finds  itself  educating 
the  negro,  in  apparent  contradiction  to  its  deepest  racial 
convictions.  The  more  democratic  conceptions  of  the 
present  day  in  regard  to  the  family  and  social  intercourse 
■R  t  •  O  t  ^^^^  ^^^^  *^^^^  racial  applications  to-morrow, 

weighed  by  a  Already  the  organized  womanhood  of  the 
Widening  South  is  showing  great  interest  in  social  bet- 

Democracy  terment.  Movements  like  those  of  scientific 
charity,  prison  and  sanitary  reforms  assume  the  solidarity 
of  communities  and  ignore  the  color-line.  The  sphere  of 
public  activity  constantly  widens  and  brings  the  impersonal 
justice  of  the  state  more  largely  to  bear;  and  these  out- 
weigh the  new  burden  of  plutocracy  added  to  old  prejudice. 
Finally,  the  present  moral  crisis  of  the  race  question  is 
certain  to  discover  the  apostasy  of  some  professed  ideal- 
The  Apostasy  '^^^^'  Secure  in  the  sense  of  the  negroes  im- 
of  some  mense  practical  handicap,  and  the  conviction 

Idealists  ^f  j^js  inferior  capacity,  there  were  some  who 

encouraged  him  to  hope  and  virtually  said,  "  Of  course  if 
you  ever  prove  yourself  our  equal  we  will  then  recognize 
you  as  such."  Time  has  brought  these  men  face  to  face 
with  negro  success  and  has  called  upon  them  to  pay  up  the 
debt  of  their  previous  professions.  A  negro  minority  has 
emerged  which  by  all  the  white  men's  tests  has  demon- 
strated its  fitness  for  full  participation  in  human  privilege. 
How  should  it  be  treated?  What  if  all  negroes  were 
Booker  Washingtons?  That  this  issue  is  actually  upon  the 
South,  Thomas  Nelson  Page  confesses  in  a  recent  notable 
article.  His  answer  is,  "  If  all  negroes  were  Booker  T. 
Washingtons   the   color-line  must   exist   unrelaxed."      To 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

moral  diagnosis  this  looks  curiously  like  what  theologians 
have  called  a  "  sin  against  the  light."  It  is  a  deliberate 
refusal  to  adjust  conduct  to  admitted  facts. 

But  there  is  another  side.  On  the  whole  the  most  en- 
couraging aspect  of  the  situation  is  the  driving  of  true 
The  Separa-  idealists  into  the  open  by  this  very  moral 
tion  of  Sheep  crisis  and  enforced  separation  of  sheep  and 
and  Goats  goats.     There  is  "  nothing  covered  that  shall 

not  be  revealed  "  was  first  spoken  as  a  word  of  confidence, 
and  as  such  it  is  justified  in  this  case.  In  the  face  of  the 
rising  tide  of  race  animosity,  of  the  growing  bitterness  of 
competition,  of  political  self-seeking  at  the  expense  of  the 
negro,  of  unworthy  and  cowardly  willingness  to  surrender 
still  further  the  fundamentals  of  democracy,  the  best 
men  of  the  South  simply  cannot  hold  their  peace.  And  they 
have  not  done  so.  The  last  five  years  have  probably  heard 
more  brave  and  candid  discussions  of  the  race  problem  and 
seen  more  deliberate  moral  choices  than  the  thirty-five 
previous.  Thus  the  ultimate  just  solution  of  this  vast 
issue  was  never  so  assured  as  now  that  conscience  has  ex- 
hausted its  conventional  excuses  and  is  forced  to  meet  the 
situation  on   ethical   grounds. 

Of  the  ultimate  happy  ending  of  the  race  problem  there 
is  no  more  assurance  than  there  is  that  democracy  will 
succeed  or  that  any  portion  of  the  human  race  will  find  a 
"  golden  harbor  " ;  but,  also,  no  less.  For  the  race  prob- 
lem is  simply  a  bit  of  the  human  problem  with  the  same 
solution,  if  there  is  any.  We  feel  the  doubtful  ebb  and 
flow  of  the  tide,  but  the  strongest  currents  of  the  present 
are  not  so  adverse  as  to  deny  to  the  brave  man  all  he 
asks  —  a  fighting  chance. 


126] 


V.  WHAT  THE  NEGRO  HAS  DONE 
FOR  HIMSELF 

I.    SUCCESS  WITH   A  MINIMUM   OF  ASSISTANCE 

THEY  will  call  this  title  question-begging  who  believe 
that  the  negro  can  do  nothing  for  himself.  That 
certain  gains  in  the  way  of  landownership,  annual 
production  of  wealth,  education,  and  organization  are 
credited  to  him  in  the  columns  of  the  census  is  admitted. 
.      .j^g  It  is  explained,  however,  that  these  are  not 

Negro's  Gains  proper  race  achievements,  because  made  un- 
His  Own  ?  ^er  white  stimulus.     All  the  negro's  substan- 

tial gains,  it  is  said,  have  been  compulsory.  Necessity  and 
the  constant  efforts  of  his  neighbors  have  prodded  him  to 
work.  For  his  worthy  victories,  thank  the  South.  His 
showier  achievements  have  been  imitative,  under  artificial 
stimulus  from  his  sentimental  alHes.  For  his  beatings  of 
the  air,  thank  the  North.  The  negro  himself  thank  for 
nothing,  or  if  for  anything,  thank  only  the  white  blood 
in  his  veins.  His  progress  in  America  is  not  genuinely 
his  own.     The   following  is  a  typical  utterance  of  this 


view; 


The  civilization  of  any  people  is  the  slow  and  toil- 
some growth  of  centuries,  an  unfolding  of  the  peo- 
ple's spirit  itself.  Its  virtue,  its  essence  lies  in  this 
very  fact.  How  then  shall  such  a  product  be  imposed 
upon  an  alien  and  inferior  race?  They  cannot  receive 
it;  they  can  put  it  on  only  as  an  outer  garment;  it 
can  never  become  truly  theirs,  the  efflorescence  of  their 
own  souls.   .  .   .  Generation  after  generation  of  cod- 

[127] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

dling  and  sympathy  in  the  North  has  not  effaced  a 
single  racial  trait  nor  raised  by  a  single  notch  the 
average  character,  moral  or  mental  or  physical.^ 

He  has  had  an  abnormal  degree  of  help.  The  good 
side  of  his  record  must  therefore  bear  a  heavy  discount. 

So  far  as  this  is  true  may  it  not  apply  to  the  bad  side 
of  his  record  as  well.'* 

But  is  it  true?     Has  the  negro  experienced  anything 

■Mr-      J  c    •  1    other  than  the  ordinary  conditions  of  prog- 
Misread  oociol-  .  i  •        i  ,, 

ogy;  the  ress  in  a  backward  race  m  the  present  age? 

Charge  of  He   is   petulantly    counseled    to   develop    his 

epen  ence        ^^^    civilization ;     yet    the    sociologist    de- 
clares, 

A  true  social  evolution  obeying  resident  forces  has 
nearly  disappeared  from  the  face  of  the  earth,  seeing 
that  to-day  the  germs  of  every  new  social  arrange- 
ment are  blown  throughout  the  world,  and  peoples 
at  the  most  diverse  stages  of  culture  are  discarding 
their  native  institutions  and  eagerly  adopting  the 
jurisprudence,  the  laws,  and  the  organization  of  the 
most  advanced  societies.^ 

The  stimulus  of  a  more  advanced  civilization,  therefore, 
far  from  being  unique,  is  the  natural,  normal,  and  inevi- 
table condition  of  progress  in  any  less  favored  race  or 
group.     So  much  for  bad  sociology. 

The  negro  has  also  been  the  victim  of  equally  bad  psy- 
chology. The  attempt  to  apply  the  principles  of  indivi- 
dual development  to  the  case  of  a  backward  race  has  been 
one-sided  and  marred  by  loose  thinking ;  besides  it  has  not 

»  W.  B.  Smith,  The  Color-Line,  pp.  259,  260. 
*  Ross,  Foundations  of  Sociology,  p.  234. 

[128] 


WHAT    THE    NEGRO    HAS    DONE    FOR     HIMSELF 

allowed  for  the  imperfect  analogy  between  the  two.  It  Is 
perfectly  true  that  culture  must  be  the  unfolding  of  inner 
^.  J  p  .  capacities ;  but  it  is  equally  true  that  the 
chology;  the  means  of  their  awakening  is  imitation.  The 
Charge  of  child  instinctively   imitates   the  ways   of  his 

^^     ^^  surroundings ;    only  after  he  has  done  so  is 

the  sense  of  their  inner  significance  aroused.  He  does  not 
first  learn  why  a  thing  should  be  done,  and  then  do  it ;  he 
first  does  it,  and  thereby  becomes  inwardly  aware  why  it 
should  be  done.  What  the  critic  probably  means  to  charge 
is  that  the  negro,  when  he  imitates  the  white  man's  ways, 
does  not  get  an  adequate  inner  sense  of  their  meaning. 
But  imitation  itself  as  the  means  of  mental  progress  is  the 
only  way  for  even  the  Caucasian  genius  to  enter  into  the 
gains  of  his  race.  The  most  original  and  spontaneous  of 
gifts  comes  this  way.  No  people  could  be  excessively  imi- 
tative except  as  their  imitation  might  fail  to  fructify 
in  the  awakening  of  a  self-explanatory  and  justifying 
feeling. 

Is  there  any  evidence  that  the  negro  is  deficient  in  such 
inner  responsiveness?    This  is  the  heart  of  the  issue.     Un- 

T        r>  doubtedlv  some  members  of  his  race  are;   lust 

Inner  Ke-  -^  .  . 

sponse  to  as  some  of  a  company  of  ostensible  worship- 

Things  ers  of  God  or  votaries  of  fashion  manifestly 

do  not  enter  into  the  meaning  of  the  acts  they 
share.  We  see  nothing  laughable  when  an  Arizona  mil- 
lionaire painfully  speaks  by  the  book,  although  his  spon- 
taneous utterance  is  picturesquely  ungrammatical ;  but  the 
negro's  gravity  in  speech  stirs  our  risibilities.  We  suspect 
him  of  posing ;  possibly  he  is.  It  is  not  to  be  expected  that 
a  general  inner  responsiveness  to  lately  imitated  ways 
will  be  acquired  by  the  majority  of  a  race  in  one  genera- 
tion —  especially   by   those   of   its   number   whose   mental 

9  r 129  1 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

habits  are  no  longer  plastic.  But  that  the  negro  as  a  race 
is  in  America  following  the  ways  of  a  civilization  which  is 
essentially  meaningless  to  him,  to  which  his  outward  con- 
formity signifies  no  inner  response,  is  sheer  assumption. 
Whether  he  would  ever  have  developed  anything  like  it  if 
left  to  himself  is  beside  the  issue.  What  he  would  now  do 
if  deprived  of  the  social  pressure  of  his  nation  and  age  is 
equally  so.  Forgotten,  the  pure  American  stock  in  the 
Southern  Appalachians  degenerated.  Races  were  not 
meant  to  live  in  isolation.  Civilizations  have  never  been 
independent  creations.  This  is  a  world  of  human  inter- 
course and  mutual  service.  Unnatural  it  is,  and  unneces- 
sary, to  suppose  that  the  American  negro  will  ever  be 
called  to  take  the  part  of  a  racial  Robinson  Crusoe.  Who 
dares  to  call  the  sunderings  of  the  Ice  Age  the  law  of 
Christian  civilization  ? 

But,  it  is  said,  after  all  the  black  man  does  not  respond 
to  the  forms  of  our  life  with  exactly  the  same  sense  of 
The  Selfsame  meaning  that  we  get.  Precisely ;  here  the 
Response  not  principle  of  originality  comes  in.  We  imi- 
Desirable  tate ;   we  are  thereby  initiated  into  the  mean- 

ing of  acts ;  but  we  are  colorless  souls  if  we  do  not  read 
something  unique  in  them.  The  individual  is  never  a  du- 
plicate. Speaking  of  inner  experience  "  the  same  "  never 
means  "just  the  same."  The  judgment  which  condemns 
the  negro  as  imitative  frequently  adds,  "  But  whatever  he 
does,  he  still  remains  a  '  nigger.'  "  There  cannot  be  higher 
praise.  To  imitate,  to  become  enlightened  thereby,  and  to 
impart  some  large  measure  of  one's  own  peculiar  mental 
contour  into  shared  experience  is  the  formula  for  normal 
human  growth.  It  is  desirable  that  inner  meanings  have 
only  enough  generic  resemblance  to  enable  men  to  co- 
operate in  the  large.     The  meaning  of  religion,  for  ex- 


WHAT    THE    NEGRO    HAS    DONE    FOR    HIMSELF 

ample,  to  an  average  negro  congregation  is  too  remote 
from  its  meaning  to  certain  types  of  whites  to  allow  them 
to  mix  comfortably  in  a  conmion  service ;  it  is  not  so  re- 
mote as  to  put  the  negro  church  out  of  the  fellowship  of 
the  churches  of  America. 

If  men  are  sufficiently  alike  to  participate  in  a  common 
civiHzation,  it  is  well  to  have  them  sufficiently  unlike  to 
give  that  civilization  interesting  variety  and  esthetic  and 
moral  enrichment.  This  the  negro  and  his  institutions 
help  to  do. 

Well,  then,  admit  that  the  negro  has  genuinely  acquired 
whatever  the  facts  show  him  outwardly  to  possess.  Has  it 
No  Contempo-  not  been  disproportionately  through  others' 
rary  American  efforts?  Emphatically,  No !  Through  slav- 
Much  for  ^^y^  ^*  ^^  said,  the  South  "  gave  "  the  negro 

Himself  the  English  language,  Christianity,  the  rudi- 

mentary arts.  So  it  did  —  after  a  fashion.  So  it  does 
to  its  white  men  of  to-day.  Each  generation  of  children 
takes  for  granted  that  it  should  receive  an  inheritance  of 
wealth,  culture,  and  opportunity;  of  material  and  social 
capital.  No  one  charges  it  with  inordinate  dependence  on 
this  account.  The  negro  has  never  had  a  thousandth  part 
of  the  help  the  more  prosperous  classes  of  whites  have  had. 
It  is  not  the  fact  nor  degree  of  assistance  that  causes 
remark,  but  the  surprise  that  it  should  have  been  held  out 
at  all  to  a  despised  race.  That  race,  too,  is  identified  by 
its  color,  set  apart  by  social  barriers  and  advertised  as  an 
object  of  charity.  But  just  this  fact  of  its  isolation  en- 
ables us  to  measure  its  comparative  achievement  and  to 
say  positively  that  no  group  of  contemporary  Americans 
has  so  largely  created  its  own  successes  as  has  the  negro 
of  the  last  two  generations.  Whatever  service  the  nation 
renders  her  children  has  been  reduced  to  the  minimum  for 

[TsT] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

him.  He  has  had  less  help  and  more  hindrance  than  any 
other.  Over  the  record  of  his  gains  we  may  justly  write, 
What  the  negro  has  done  for  himself. 

II.    WITHIN  THE  NATIONAL  LIFE 

We  are  first  to  consider  how  largely  the  negro  bulks 
in  his  more  external  relations  to  the  nation  as  mere  phy- 
Comparative  sical  presence  and  as  economic  producer. 
Place:  Speaking    numerically,    first    of    all,    he    has 

Numerical  doubled  his  numbers  since  emancipation  and 

now  comprises  one-third  of  the  population  of  the  South 
and  eleven  per  cent  of  that  of  the  entire  nation. 

The  negro  has  greatly  extended  his  habitat  and  range. 
While  only  one-tenth  of  his  people  live  outside  of  the  South, 
there  are  to-day  more  negroes  in  New  York 
than  in  Richmond ;  more  in  Chicago  than  in 
Charleston ;  while  Washington,  not  New  Orleans,  is  the 
negro  metropohs.  Mississippi  has  a  town  composed  ex- 
clusively of  negroes,  but  so  has  Iowa.  Into  Montana  and 
Idaho,  and  even  the  Canadian  northwest,  the  negro  miner 
has  gone.  The  students  of  missionary  schools  share  in  a 
systematic  and  periodic  industrial  movement  of  the  race. 
There  is  an  annual  summer  exodus  of  boys  from  Brick 
School,  North  Carolina,  to  the  truck  farms  of  Connecticut, 
and  of  Fisk  students  to  city  jobs  in  Chicago.  A  washer- 
woman in  Montclair,  New  Jersey,  turns  out  to  be  a  gradu- 
ate of  an  American  Missionary  Association  school  in 
Jonesboro,  Tennessee.  •  A  barber  in  Florida  will  discourse 
famiharly  of  the  Pacific  coast  cities.  I  know  of  Oklahoma 
cotton  growers  who  return  every  winter  to  their  old  homes 
in  North  Carolina,  and  can  afford  to  do  it.  Read  at  large 
in  census  statistics  such  facts  indicate  a  gradual  redistri- 

[132] 


WHAT    THE    NEGRO    HAS    DONE    FOR    HIMSELF 

bution   of  negro  population   throughout  the  North  and 
West,  showing  increasing  capacity  for  long-distance  mi- 
gration in  response  to  economic  opportunity. 
^  .  The  occupations  of  the  American  negro  in 

Occupational  ^rt/^/-w  i-    ^^ 

lyOO  were  as  loUows: 

Agriculture,  fishing,  and  mining     ....  1,757,403  or  57% 

Domestic  and  personal  service 963,080  or  31% 

Manufacturing  and  mechanical  industries  172,970  or  6% 

Trade  and  transportation 145,717  or  5% 

Professional  service 22,994  or  1% 

As  compared  with  native  born  and  foreign  born  whites 
the  most  striking  contrast  is  the  excessive  proportion  of 
negroes  engaged  in  agriculture,  and  their  great  deficiency 
in  trade,  transportation,  manufacturing,  and  mechanical 
industries.  In  these  occupations  their  proportion  is  only 
about  one-tenth  that  of  the  whites. 

The  census  further  divides  these  groups  of  occupations 
into  twenty-seven  special  employments.  In  all  but  three 
of  these  the  negro  made  absolute  gains  and  in  thirteen  he 
made  relative  gains  during  the  last  census  period.  On  the 
other  hand  he  suffered  slight  losses  in  some  of  the  skilled 
industries,  the  significance  of  which  fact  is  considered  in 
a  later  paragraph.  In  agriculture,  to  which  over  one- 
half  of  his  productive  energy  is  given,  the  negro  operates 
one-third  of  the  improved  acreage  of  the  South  and  pro- 
duces one -third  of  the  annual  crop  values.  This  is  prob- 
ably not  because  he  is  as  good  a  farmer  as  the  white  man 
(his  deficiency  in  the  use  of  fertilizers,  for  example,  shows 
that  he  is  not),  but  because  in  the  main  he  occupies  the 
better  land.  Yet  whatever  his  deficiencies  he  exercises  a 
tremendous  productive  function  in  his  section,  and  annu- 
ally adds  untold  millions  to  the  national  wealth.     If  he  is  a 

fiiil 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

problem  he  is  also  an  economic  asset  to  the  South  of  im- 
measurable value. 

Of  the  homes  in  which  he  lived  in  1900  the  negro  owned 
21.8  per  cent,  a  gain  of  over  3  per  cent  in  the  decade. 
Ownership  of  '^^^  white  population  owns  50  per  cent  of  its 
Property:  homes.      But   three-quarters    of   the   negro's 

Homes  homes  were  owned  unencumbered  by  mortgage 

against  only  two-thirds  of  the  whites.  Something  like  this 
ratio  would  hold  for  a  row  of  negro  business  places.  Be- 
cause of  the  lack  of  credit  facilities  the  negro  merchant 
ordinarily  owns  a  greater  proportion  and  borrows  less  of 
an  invested  capital  than  does  the  white.  Personal  prop- 
erty is  often  bought  on  deferred  payments,  yet  even  the 
negro's  spring  suit  or  Easter  bonnet  is  more  likely  to  be 
paid  for  than  if  they  were  on  white  bodies. 

Of  the  farms  which  he  operated  in  1900  the  negro  owned 
25  per  cent,  numbering  in  all  173,552.  Their  combined 
acreage  was  above  12,000,000  or  more  than 
the  total  area  of  Belgium  and  Holland.  His 
proportionate  ownership  was  lowest  in  Georgia  where  he 
owned  but  14  per  cent  of  the  farms,  but  this  had  risen  to 
20  per  cent  in  1906.  His  holdings  in  that  state  then 
numbered  82,822  farms,  the  value  of  which  had  increased 
in  the  six  years  from  $14,196,735  to  $23,750,219  —  an 
enormous  gain  of  67.3  per  cent.  These  holdings  are 
divided  as  follows : 

72  negroes  own  more  than  1000  acres  each. 

368  negroes  own  between  500  and  1000  acres  each. 

1475  negroes  own  between  200  and  500  acres  each. 

3540  negroes  own  between  175  and  260  acres  each. 

10,392  negroes  own  between  100  and  175  acres  each. 

19,076  negroes  own  between  50  and  100  acres  each. 

39,652  negroes  own  between  20  and  50  acres  each. 
__ 


^^fSi^^ 


•* 

> 


.>»^3ik' 


"''^.'-V       J', 


Negro  Rural  Home,  Piedmont  Region 


Negro  Business  Street,  Thojiasville,  Ga. 


WHAT    THE    NEGRO    HAS    DONE    FOR     HIMSELF 


The  highest  proportion  of  farm  ownership  in  1900  was 
in  Virginia,  where  the  negro  owns  over  58  per  cent  of  the 
farms  he  occupies.  Prosperity  perhaps  reached  its  high- 
water  mark  in  Gloucester  County.  ^  This  county  has  a 
population  of  12,832,  more  than  one-half  of  which  is  col- 
ored. Here  90  per  cent  of  negro  farmers  own  their 
land,  and  there  is  probably  the  best  housed  negro  rural 
community  in  America.  Under  these  conditions  the  race 
shows  somewhat  less  crime  proportionally  than  do  the 
whites  of  Gloucester  County.  The  moral  stimulus  which 
has  made  such  gains  possible  is  due  largely  to  the  proxim- 
ity of  Hampton  and  to  the  presence  at  Cappahosic  of  the 
excellent  Institute  and  model  farm  of  the  American  Mis- 
sionary Association. 

The  economic  basis  of  Gloucester  County  prosperity 
is,  however,  the  Chesapeake  Bay  oyster  industry,  furnish- 
ing the  negro  a  winter  occupation  and  a  cash  wage  which 
has  largely  been  put  into  property.  It  is  not  by  the  land 
that  land  was  chiefly  acquired ;  and  this,  according  to  my 
observation,  is  the  rule  throughout  the  South. 

How  then  do  negroes  acquire  land,  and  what  sort  do 
they  ordinarily  acquire.?  Is  it  an  easy  thing  to  do? 
How  Negroes  There  is,  to  be  sure,  plenty  of  unimproved 
Acquire  Land  and  waste  land  in  the  South,  yet  Professor 
DuBois  is  quite  right  in  insisting  that  it  is  not  now  easy 
for  the  negro  to  become  an  owner  except  of  poor  and  agri- 
culturally impossible  land,  which  he  gets  because  no  one 
else  wants  it.  The  general  law  throughout  the  South  is 
that  the  blacks  own  the  poorer  but  rent  and  occupy  the 
better  land.  For  acquiring  ownership  five  methods  chiefly 
have  been  open  to  him: 

*  Williams,  "Study  of  Local  Conditions,"  etc.,  Southern  Workman, 
vol.  35,  pp.  103  ff. 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

(1)  Through  a  supplementary  income  from  industry. 
I  have  repeatedly  investigated  the  communities  adj  acent  to 
mission  schools  and  found  land  ownership  proportionate 
to  the  local  opportunities  for  winter  work  at  a  cash 
wage.  In  Gloucester  County  it  is  oystering;  elsewhere, 
lumbering,  the  turpentine  industry,  tie  cutting  or  rail- 
road and  "  public "  work.  Large  areas  of  the  Black 
Belt  have  no  such  opportunities,  and  this  lack  consti- 
tutes their  peculiar  hopelessness.  The  unique  industrial 
settlement  at  Kowaliga,  Alabama,  has  for  its  central 
idea  the  supplementing  of  agriculture  by  industrial  op- 
portunities. Often  land  is  bought  by  a  son  or  brother 
working  for  wages  in  the  North;  or  a  whole  family 
migrates  there,  expecting  to  return  to  the  South  when 
enough  money  has  been  saved  to  acquire  land.  Only 
rarely  by  agriculture  does  ownership  come  without  a  cash 
wage  supplementing,  for  at  least  part  of  the  year,  the 
system  of  advances. 

(2)  Of  course  exceptions  are  numerous.  The  excep- 
tional man,  or  the  average  man  in  an  exceptional  year,  has 
been  able  to  show  a  cash  surplus  from  the  sale  of  his 
produce,  usually,  of  course,  cotton.  A  "  bumper " 
crop  or  possibly  a  market  manipulation  like  the  famous 
Sully  cotton  corner  will  disarrange  the  landlord's  plan 
to  take  all  the  tenant  makes,  and  perhaps  leave  a  balance 
which  the  negro  is  sometimes  wise  enough  to  invest  in 
land. 

(3)  A  small  but  appreciable  amount  of  property  has 

come  to  the  negro  by  inheritance.     This  seems  strange  in 

a  race  whose  fathers  were  all  slaves.     The  explanation  is 

that  often  its  fathers  were   not  slaves  but  masters,  who 

started   their  newly   emancipated  or  more  recently  born 

sons  with  a  farm  each.     I  know  of  many  cases  where  such 

__ 


WHAT    THE    NEGRO    HAS    DONE    FOR    HIMSELF 

inheritance  has  been  the  beginning  of  exceptional  negro 
prosperity. 

(4)  Philanthropy,  too,  has 'had  a  part  in  helping  the 
negro  to  acquire  land.  Sometimes  the  patron  was  not  ful- 
filing  blood  obligations,  but  merely  expressing  the  gratitude 
of  a  former  master  or  present  well-wisher.  Naturally,  how- 
ever, the  giving  of  farms  as  gifts  outright  has  been  rare. 

(5)  Endeavors  on  the  part  of  Northern  philanthropy 
to  assist  the  negro  to  acquire  land  have  generally  in- 
volved a  sense  of  the  virtue  of  self-help.  They  have  there- 
fore tried  to  combine  philanthropy  and  business.  Land 
has  been  set  apart  and  sold  to  negroes  on  easy  terms. 
Frequently  the  method  has  been  too  easy.  The  reputation 
for  philanthropy  has  doomed  the  enterprise  in  advance. 
Northern  inexperience  with  the  negro  has  complicated 
the  problem.  Such  experiments  in  connection  with  many 
mission  schools  have  given  opportunity  to  hundreds  of 
negro  families,  yet  few  of  them  have  been  conspicuous 
successes  from  the  economic  standpoint.  Just  now  a 
carefully  guarded  experiment  in  connection  with  the  Cal- 
houn School,  Alabama,  is  in  process  of  successful  consum- 
mation, and  North  Carolina  furnishes  a  recent  interesting 
example  of  a  frankly  commercial  venture  undertaken  by  a 
Southern  lawyer,  Hon.  James  E.  Pou  of  Raleigh. 

Mr.  Pou's  account  of  the  experiment  follows: 

In  1897  my  brother  and  I  bought  a  large  tract 
of  practically  run-down  and  abandoned  farm  land  in 
Johnston  County  about  five  miles  from  the  railroad. 
This  land  was  naturally  good,  but  had  been  cultivated 
by  tenants  for  a  great  many  years,  and  was  in  a 
thoroughly  run-down,  dilapidated  condition,  fences, 
houses,  and  everything.  Much  of  the  land  was  grown 
up  in  broom  sedge  and  second-growth  pines. 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

We  cut  the  land  up  into  small  farms,  usually  from 
80  to  100  acres,  trying  to  give  each  farm  a  road 
front,  some  upland,  some  forest  and  some  meadow, 
running  back  to  a  creek.  We  then  undertook  to  sell 
a  portion  of  this  land  to  colored  people,  as  there  had 
been  a  very  large  negro  population  on  this  land  be- 
fore; some  still  remained  and  were  attached  to  the 
old  farm.  When  they  heard  it  was  to  be  cut  up 
and  sold,  they  seemed  very  anxious  to  acquire  a 
foothold. 

My  brother  and  I  found  that  not  one  could  pay 
cash  for  the  land,  but  we  decided  to  give  them  a 
chance.  We  said  to  them  that  if  they  would  go  to 
work  on  the  land,  we  would  give  them  a  chance  to 
work  it  out.  A  considerable  number  accepted  the 
proposition,  and  they  began  trying  to  work  out  their 
land  in  the  year  1898.  At  the  present  time  nearly  all 
of  them  have  paid  for  their  land,  and  I  do  not  know  of 
a  single  one  who  has  not  either  entirely  paid  for  his 
land  or  so  nearly  done  so  that  the  debt  against  it  is 
a  small  proportion  of  its  cash  value. 

Besides  paying  for  this  land,  in  most  instances,  and 
paying  nearly  all  for  it  in  other  instances,  these  people 
have  greatly  improved  their  farms.  They  have  all 
built  comparatively  comfortable  houses,  some  with 
four  or  more  rooms.  They  have  cleared  land,  and  a 
large  number  have  good  live  stock.  They  all  live  com- 
fortably and  their  credit  with  the  stores  is  good. 
Besides  the  land  they  bought  from  us,  I  understand 
that  some  have  bought  land  from  other  people.  I 
understand  that  Hezekiah  Watson  and  his  boys  own 
land  easily  worth  from  three  to  five  thousand  dollars, 
and  it  is  nearly,  if  not  quite,  all  paid  for.  These 
men  were  tenants  in  1897,  and  hardly  ever  expected 
to  own  land. 

I  have  taken  a  great  deal  of  interest  in  the  out- 

[138] 


WHAT    THE    NEGRO    HAS    DONE    FOR    HIMSELF 

come  of  this  experiment  (for  it  was  an  experiment  to 
sell  land  on  credit  to  colored  people)  and  I  have 
watched  the  conduct  of  these  people  closely.  I  do  not 
think  that  one  of  these  men  has  been  in  court  since  they 
bargained  for  the  land.  I  have  heard  of  no  trouble  in 
their  community.  Their  white  neighbors  speak  well 
of  them  and  they  are  regarded  by  everybody  as  a  use- 
ful addition  to  the  community.  I  think  the  determin- 
ation to  own  their  homes  has  nerved  these  people  up 
to  unusual  effort  and  their  success  shows  what  an  in- 
dustrious man  can  do  when  he  tries. 

I  do  not  think  that  a  single  person  that  bought 
land  from  us  has  thrown  his  part  up.  One  of  these 
men  moved  away,  but  some  other  colored  man  of  the 
community  took  his  trade  and  carried  it  out.  I  think 
every  one  of  the  men  now  lives  on  his  own  land,  most 
of  them  clear  of  incumbrance.  This  community  has 
its  own  church  and  schoolhouse  and  the  young  ones 
can  generally  read  and  write. 

No  general  or  complete  statistics  of  negro  ownership  of 
city  property  exists,  but  their  assessments  in  many 
Southern  communities  are  impressive  and  their  rent-rolls 

^.    „  long.     Some  indication  is  furnished  by  the 

City  Property  i.        /r  ^   -         .-      t.-  i-  ^u 

results  01  recent  investigation  oi  the  prop- 
erty holdings  of  ninety  former  students  of  Tougaloo 
University.  Forty-nine  own  5,896  acres  of  land  valued  at 
$26,430 ;  seventy-two  own  239  houses,  mostly  in  towns 
and  cities,  valued  at  $118,075,  and  sixty-eight  own  town 
and  city  lots  valued  at  $101,040.  The  ninety  persons  in- 
vestigated represented  thirty-six  occupations.  Such  a 
widespread  holding  of  moderate  property,  showing  suc- 
cess in  such  varied  lines  of  livelihood,  is  more  significant 
of  race  progress  than  large  acquirements  on  the  part  of 
a  few. 

fiiol 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

Naturally  no  definite  information  is  available  as  to  the 

wealth  of  the  negro  business  and  professional  classes.     We 

„,    ,.,    ,  are  assured  that  the  wealth  of  the  thirty-six 

Wealth  of  ,  -' 

Business  and       delegates  at  the  1908  meeting  of  the  Negro 

Professional  Business  Men's  League,  who  gave  talks  on 
how  they  had  succeeded,  as  well  as  of  most  of 
the  five  hundred  delegates  on  the  convention  floor,  would 
have  to  be  represented  by  five  and  six  figures.  A  superfi- 
cial acquaintance  with  the  professional  negro  in  any  of 
the  larger  Southern  cities  will  discover  not  a  few  whose 
incomes  are  upwards  of  $5000.  In  other  words,  a  fair 
proportion  of  the  race  is,  financially  speaking,  successful 
beyond  the  average  American. 

Statistics  of  government  employment  show  a  number  of 
negroes  enjoying  comfortable  Federal  salaries.  In  the 
(Government  District  of  Columbia  alone  two  hundred  and 
Service  ninety-two  receive  more  than  $1000  per  year. 

The  total  number  of  Federal  employees  of  the  race  is  over 
5500.  All  over  the  South  the  "  Africanization  of  the 
post-office  "  is  a  familiar  cry.  Such  Africanization  can 
only  take  place  after  competitive  examinations  shared  by 
white  candidates.  In  so  large  a  city  as  Mobile,  recently, 
the  entire  force  of  mail-carriers  was  black,  as  were  a  large 
number  of  other  post-ofllce  employees.  For  a  series  of 
years  this  service  absorbed  all  the  male  graduates  of 
Emerson  Institute  in  that  city. 

III.    WITHIN  RACIAL  LINES 

However  impressive  the  exhibit  of  the  negro's  material 
progress,  the  most  important  thing  which  he  has  yet  done 
for  himself  is  to  create  social  agencies  and  institutions. 
We  shall  follow  out  the  story  of  his  quantitative  gains, 

[uol 


REPRESENTATIVE   NEGROES 


George  W.  Crawford, 

Attorney,  New  Haven,  Conn. 

A.  C.  Garner, 

Pastor,  Washington,  D.  C. 

H.  H.  Proctor,  D.D., 
Pastor,  Atlanta,  Ga. 


J.  W.  Work, 

Professor,  Fisk  University 

Wm.  N.  DeBerry, 

Pastor,  Springfield,  Mass 

Geo.  W.  Moore,  D.D., 

Supt.  of  Negro  Church  Work,  American 
Missionary  Association 


WHAT    THE    NEGRO    HAS    DONE    FOR     HIMSELF 

but  shall  from  this  point  attempt  to  accompany  it  with  an 
interpretation  of  that  qualitative  development  within  the 
race  which  has  made  them  possible.  For  a  study  of  negro 
institutional  progress  reveals  a  type  of  organizing  ability 
and  instinctive  social  genius  which  prophesy  immeasurable 
results. 

A  lady  from  Virginia,  new  to  a  border  city,  afforded  her 
friends  much  innocent  amusement  by  the  inquiry  whether 
Domestic  the  wife  of  a  negro  janitor  could  be  engaged 

Institutions  to  wash  dishes  on  a  special  occasion.  She  was 
dismayed  to  be  told  that  she  herself  would  be  as  likely  to 
go  out  washing  dishes  as  would  the  janitor's  wife.  This 
status  of  the  negro  woman  as  mistress  of  her  own  home  the 
Virginian  had  never  met  before. 

Now  the  transfer  of  black  mothers  and  daughters  since 
emancipation  from  the  kitchen  or  field  to  the  fireside,  with 
its  privacy,  sanctities,  and  graces,  is  perhaps  the  most 
radical  revolution  in  the  structure  of  negro  society.  That 
the  creation  of  the  home  is  a  moral  gain,  all  recognize. 
But  popular  thought  fails  to  see  in  it  a  type  of  social 
organization  new  to  the  race,  an  unaccustomed  division 
and  specialization  of  labor.  In  view  of  this  novelty,  the 
conjugal  statistics  of  the  census  ought  not  to  be  taken  just 
for  granted.  It  is  a  tremendous  fact  that  the  race  has  ad- 
justed itself  to  civilized  marriage.  This  adjustment  is 
indeed  imperfect.  But,  as  we  shall  later  discover,  its  weak- 
ness is  due  less  to  wickedness  than  to  economic  conditions. 
As  compared  with  Africa  and  slavery,  the  gain  is  immeas- 
urable, and  a  complete  transition  is  hopefully  assured  by 
the  material  and  moral  progress  of  the  past.  All  told, 
the  domestic  reorganization  of  his  life  is  the  American 
negro's  most  magnificent  achievement. 

The   prosperous   citizen   who   chances   to    overhear   his 

— - 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

cook  converse  with  her  kitchen  neighbor  about  "  lodge  " 

X,  .    T        and  "  ten-cent  dues  " ;  who  finds  that  his  wife 

Economic  In-  .    i       i 

stitutions:  cannot    go   to    the   theater   to-night  because 

Fraternal  and      "  Caroline  wants  to  go  to  the  initiation,"  or 
nsurance  discovers  his  own  way  blocked  by  a  procession 

of  a  colored  "  Sir  Knights,"  may  dismiss  such  "  nigger 
organizations  "  with  a  smile  of  indifference  and  contempt. 
Not  so  with  the  sociological  expert.  He  sees  in  them  pro- 
found economic  originality  and  wisdom.  "  The  first  prac- 
tical shelter,"  says  Prof.  Simon  N.  Patten,  "  of  every 
man  just  over  the  subsistence  line  is  in  a  fund  for  sick, 
death,  or  strike  benefits,  or  in  building  and  loan  associa- 
tions." On  his  humble  levels  of  fraternalism  the  negro  is 
developing  social  capacity  and  husbanding  material  re- 
sources ;  the  results  already  add  greatly  to  his  group- 
strength,  both  economic  and  moral.  His  institutions  of 
savings  and  insurance  are  yet  chaotic  in  character.  The 
strongest  bear  the  names  and  assume  to  be  legitimate  off- 
shoots of  the  older  secret  orders,  like  Masons,  Odd  Fel- 
lows, and  Pythians.  All  told,  they  own  from  four  to  five 
millions  of  dollars'  worth  of  property,  and  collect  a 
milhon  and  a  half  annually  from  their  members.  The 
more  significant  institutions,  however,  are  local.  Secret 
society  halls  dot  the  rural  South  and  cities  are  honey- 
combed with  lodge  rooms.  Much  of  the  motive  behind 
these  enterprises  is  naive  and  primitive  —  a  half  super- 
stitious desire  to  be  "  buried  right,"  a  childish  love  of 
display,  the  convivial  instinct;  but  along  with  these  goes 
a  sound,  economic  instinct  directed  to  substantial  group 
ends.  To  be  sure,  the  financial  management  of  the  local 
societies  is  often  lamentably  lax,  and  in  some  of  the  pop- 
ular insurance  orders  a  scientific  basis  of  operations  is 
lacking,  yet  both  are  learning  by  their  mistakes  and  are 

[142] 


WHAT    THE    NEGRO    HAS    DONE    FOR     HIMSELF 

slowly  correcting  them.  As  an  administrator  of  charities 
in  a  border  city,  I  frequently  found  low-grade  negroes 
fortified  through  their  lodges  against  loss  through  sick- 
ness and  death  as  the  corresponding  white  class  was  not. 

The  secret  of  much  of  the  negro's  success  in  acquiring 
property  lies  in  modest  organizations  of  the  savings  and 
Building  and  ^^^^  ^^P^'  ^  typical  example  is  that  of  the 
Loan  Associa-  Gloucester,  Virginia,  Land,  Loan  and  Build- 
*^°°^  ing  Association.     It  was  organized  under  the 

inspiration  of  Principal  Price  of  the  Cappahosic  Insti- 
tute. It  endeavors  to  aid  its  members  to  secure  homes  or 
to  establish  themselves  in  business,  and  to  provide  a  profit- 
able investment  for  savings.  Its  charter  is  an  instrument 
carefully  drawn  in  the  light  of  the  best  experience  and 
conforming  to  the  state  law.  Shares  are  $10  each  on 
a  capital  stock  of  $25,000.  They  are  acquired  by  an 
advanced  payment  of  $1,  which  covers  the  first  ten 
months'  dues  and  ten  cents  per  month  thereafter  till  the 
entire  amount  is  paid.  The  expenses  of  administration  are 
carried  by  an  entrance  fee  of  twenty-five  cents  and  a 
charge  of  ten  cents  on  each  loan,  sale,  or  transfer.  All 
such  transactions  must  have  the  approval  of  a  lawyer. 
Loans  pay  eight  per  cent  interest.  The  membership  is 
now  over  one  hundred  and  seventy,  owning  from  one  to 
twenty-five  shares  of  stock  each.  Seven  per  cent  annual 
dividends  have  been  paid  for  the  last  three  years.  Hun- 
dreds of  similar  institutions  of  thrift  exist  throughout 
negro  society. 

In  many  other  lines  the  cooperative  impulse  has  ex- 
pressed itself.  Productive  cooperation  has  been  tried  in 
Other  Forms  enterprises  as  diverse  as  cotton-mills,  coal- 
of  Cooperation  mines,  iron-foundries,  brick  and  tile-work,  tur- 
pentine plants,  and  farms.     Negroes  have  even  established 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

three  street  railways  to  compete  with  lines  which  showed 
race  discrimination.  In  distribution,  hundreds  of  enter- 
prises have  been  established,  especially  in  grocery  and 
drug-stores  and  in  publishing  companies.  Many  of  these 
attempts  have  been  financial  failures  or  at  least  have  not 
been  permanently  profitable,  but  even  these  have  had  great 
educative  value.  It  is  not  kno^vn  whether  or  not  the  per- 
centage of  failures  has  been  in  excess  of  those  of  the 
business  world  at  large.  They  simply  repeat  the  story 
of  the  first  cooperative  efforts  of  any  commercially  inex- 
perienced group  with  small  capital.  But  the  discovery  of 
a  widespread  will  to  try  such  methods  is  deeply  significant. 
They  do  not  impress  us  because  few  recognize  the  possi- 
bilities of  the  cooperative  system  for  anybody.  It  does 
not  seem  to  harmonize  with  the  general  tendencies  of  the 
age.  Yet  the  forces  of  the  world  never  go  all  in  the  same 
direction  at  once.  Varied  principles  of  economic  associa- 
tion may  coincide  and  thrive.  In  organizing  his  group 
resources  on  lowly  levels  the  negro  points  the  way  for 
other  handicapped  classes.  The  ships  of  Lancashire 
weavers  who  began  cooperation  on  these  levels  now  sail 
all  the  Seven  Seas.  Belgian  peasants  build  cooperative 
palaces  of  marble.  It  is  an  American  weakness  to  despise 
the  day  of  small  things.  We  ourselves  do  not  succeed 
that  way ;  therefore  it  is  not  a  worthy  pathway  to  success. 
This,  attitude  shuts  the  door  to  comprehensive  and  just 
judgment  of  the  negro's  race-gift  of  group  organization. 
There  are  no  up-to-date  statistics  on  negro  trade 
unionism.  In  1902,  however,  40,000  negroes  were  mem- 
bers of  a  group  of  trade-unions  aggregating 
500,000  members.  These  were  most  largely 
miners,  tobacco-workers,  longshoremen,  masons,  painters, 
and  carpenters.     The  larger  group  of  unions  aggregating 

[144] 


WHAT    THE    NEGRO    HAS    DONE    FOR    HIMSELF 


700,000  members  had  in  all  only  1000  scattered  negro  ex- 
ceptions;  and  in  many  cases,  no  negro  members  at  all. 
This  shows  on  the  face  of  it  the  comparatively  limited 
part  of  the  race  in  labor  organization.  Even  in  unions 
where  the  negro  is  numerically  strong,  his  practical  op- 
portunities are  not  uniform.  In  the  South,  "  locals  "  are 
generally,  though  not  invariably,  organized  separately. 
In  spite  of  his  union  card,  prejudice  often  keeps  the  negro 
out  of  opportunity  which  his  white  brother  receives. 
Where  he  has  been  accepted  it  is  generally  because  he  has 
fought  his  way  in.  He  has  begun  as  a  strike-breaker  and 
has  been  afterwards  unionized  in  self-defense  by  the  white 
trade.  Trade  unionism,  like  all  ideaHstic  movements,  finds 
it  extremely  hard  to  make  its  practises  square  with  its 
theories.  In  practise  its  organization  is  too  often  selfish, 
using  every  prejudice  to  keep  its  own  monopoly.  It  is  to 
be  confessed,  too,  that  the  inferior  efficiency  of  the  negro 
has  often  been  a  heavy  load  for  the  union  to  carry.  The 
leaders  of  the  movement  have  undoubtedly  tried  not  to 
draw  the  color-line.  Nevertheless  the  actual  working 
attitude  of  organized  labor  is  decidedly  adverse  to  the 
negro,  especially  in  the  North. 

The  situation  is  not  without  signs  more  favorable  to 
him.  The  recent  unparalleled  immigration  of  unskilled 
laborers  has  compelled  the  unionist  movement  to  adopt 
a  more  democratic  spirit.  "  The  man  who  has  joined  one 
of  the  unions  formed  within  the  last  six  years  learns  '  that 
his  lot  is  bound  with  that  of  the  whole  working  class  '  and 
'  that  he  can  no  longer  advance  by  building  a  monopoly 
of  labor  within  his  trade.'  The  lines  of  industrial  caste 
must  break  in  order  to  give  the  class  which  has  the  nu- 
merical power,  free  admission  into  the  ranks  above  it."  ^ 
>  Patten,  New  Basis  of  Civilization,  p.  104. 
10  [  145  ] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

This  new  attitude  gives  organized  labor  a  fresh  vantage- 
ground  in  moral  principle  and  its  working  out  and  per- 
colation into  the  South  may  be  counted  on  as  one  of  the 
most  certain  and  massive  forces  against  race  prejudice  in 
the  future. 

The  foregoing  is  an  inadequate  treatment  of  the  grave 
problem  of  the  relation  of  the  negro  to  organized  labor. 
Other  Forms  ^^  ^^  ^  sufficient  answer,  however,  to  the  charge 
of  Labor  that   he   has    shown   himself   lacking   in    or- 

Organization  ganizing  capacity.  Up  to  the  full  measure 
allowed  him,  he  has  used  the  resource  of  industrial  organ- 
ization in  its  highest  form.  Beyond  that  he  has  devised 
original  forms  of  cooperation,  especially  to  affect  agri- 
cultural wages.  Said  a  Virginia  clergyman  to  me,  "  The 
niggers  down  here  are  ruining  the  country.  They  've  got 
a  secret  agreement  not  to  work  for  less  than  a  dollar  a 
day.  We  cannot  get  a  man  for  less,"  Similar  laments  fill 
the  South.  In  the  early  winter  of  1908  a  number  of  negro 
society  halls  in  southwestern  Georgia  were  dynamited  by 
whites.  Local  press  despatches,  explaining  the  occurrence, 
showed  significant  variations.  Some  charged  the  secret 
societies  with  harboring  criminals,  others  with  effecting 
combinations  to  raise  wages.  On  September  27,  1908,  in 
the  same  region  (Calhoun,  Baker,  and  Miller  Counties) 
eighteen  colored  churches  and  schoolhouses  were  burned. 
Again  two  causes  were  alleged:  that  negroes  plotted  as- 
saults, and  that  they  had  decided  to  sell  cotton  at  a  lower 
figure  than  that  at  which  the  white  planters'  association 
was  holding  the  crop.-^  Thus  outside  of  conventional 
labor  organization,  and  in  the  field  of  agriculture  where 
such  organization  ordinarily  has  proved  least  successful, 
negro  group-action  is  a  grim  and  mighty  fact. 
>  See  dispatch.  New  York  Times,  September  28,  1908. 

f  1461 


^a'PIAT    THE    NEGRO    HAS    DONE    FOR     HIMSELF 

With  the  growth  of  negro  city  groups  in  wealth  and 
race  consciousness  a  system  of  regular  banks,  now  num- 
bering over  forty  in  the  United  States,  has 
arisen  to  furnish  the  facilities  of  commercial 
credit  to  the  rapidly  increasing  business  and  investing 
classes.  One  of  the  oldest  and  strongest  of  these  is  the 
Dime  Savings  Bank  in  Birmingham,  Alabama.  Starting 
with  $500  deposits  in  1890,  it  has  grown  to  hold 
$1,097,224  in  1906-7.  This  considerable  sum  belonged 
to  9112  depositors. 

Probably  the  most  remarkable  negro  economic  institu- 
tion is,  however,  the  United  Order  of  the  True  Reformers 

^     , .    ^.  with  headquarters  at  Richmond,  Virginia.    It 

Combination        .  .  ^  .        .  ... 

of  Activities  by    is  a  national  organization  combining  an  in- 

the  True  surance    company    with    80,000    members,    a 

e  ormers  central  bank  which  has  done  a  total  business 

of  $16,000,000  (and  the  only  one  in  Richmond  which 
continually  paid  specie  during  the  panic  of  1893),  and  a 
real  estate  enterprise  owning  twenty-seven  income-bringing 
buildings,  most  of  which  are  rented  to  local  lodges.  The 
Washington  building  cost  $100,000  and  contains  a  the- 
ater, a  dozen  lodge  rooms,  an  armory,  two  stores,  several 
offices,  and  a  barber  shop.  The  truly  remarkable  record 
of  the  Order  is  summarized  as  follows :  '^ 

1881.    The  Grand  Fountain  organized  with  100  mem- 
bers and  $150  cash. 
1907.    The  Grand  Fountain  membership  increased  to 
80,000. 

Sick  and  death  benefits  paid  to  date $2,340,389 

Paid  up  capital  of  the  savings-bank 100,000 

Deposits  in  the  savings-bank 336,272 

>  The  World's  Work,  June,  1908,  pp.  10,  348. 
— - 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

Real  estate  department's  holdings 388,000 

Value  of  property  of  Old  Folks'  Home  ....  36,495 

The  yearly  business  of  five  stores 496,373 

The  negro  church  is  an  intricate  and  impressive  social 

organization,  as  well  as  an  institution  of  the  higher  life. 

T    rx  r-        £     It  is  indeed  the  chief  institutional  creation  of 

Institutions  of  .  . 

the  Higher  the  race  and  its  success  is  a  vast  economic 

Life:  the  achievement.     Its  proportionate  membership 

greatly  exceeds  that  of  the  white  churches,  in- 
cluding probably  thirty-six  per  cent  of  the  total  negro 
population  and  of  the  population  above  ten  years  of  age 
over  fifty  per  cent.  This  number  is  distributed  through 
about  25,000  local  churches,  of  which  more  than  four- 
fifths  are  in  ecclesiastical  connections  exclusively  under 
negro  control.  Ninety-eight  per  cent  of  all  negro  church 
members  belong  to  various  Baptist  and  Methodist  bodies. 
It  is  noteworthy  that,  while  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
polity  authority  is  highly  centralized,  the  Baptist  system 
Evidence  of  ^^  extremely  democratic.  Socially  this  is  sig- 
Administrative  nificant  as  showing  the  negro's  capacity  to 
Capacity  ^gg  widely  divergent  governmental  types.    He 

has  succeeded  about  equally  well  under  the  two  ecclesias- 
tical extremes.  Thirteen  bishops  of  the  African  Metho- 
dist Episcopal  church,  for  example,  are  said  to 

wield  the  power  directly  over  750,000  American 
negroes,  and  indirectly  over  two  or  more  millions, 
administer  $10,000,000  worth  of  property  and  an 
annual  budget  of  $500,000. 

These  bishops  are  elected  for  life  by  a  General 
Conference  meeting  every  four  years.  The  member- 
ship of  the  General  Conference  consists  of  ministerial 
and  lay  delegates :    the  clerical  delegates  arc  elected 

[US] 


Ingraji  Chapki,  J.  K.  Buick   Stiiooi.,  N.  C. 
Largest  A.  M.  A.  school  under  negro  control 


FlltST    CoNGREGATIONAI.    ChLTRCH,  AtI.ANTA,  Ga. 

Pioneer  in  the  South  in  institutional  work  for  the  race 


WHAT     THE    NEGRO     HAS    DONE    FOR     HIMSELF 

from  the  Annual  Conferences,  one  for  every  thirty 
ministers.  Two  lay  delegates  for  each  Annual  Con- 
ference are  selected  by  the  representatives  of  the  offi- 
cial church  boards  in  the  Conference.  Thus  we  have 
a  peculiar  case  of  negro  government,  with  elaborate 
machinery  and  the  experience  of  a  hundred  years. 
How  has  it  succeeded.'^  Its  financial  and  numerical 
success  has  been  remarkable,  as  has  been  shown. 
Moreover,  the  bishops  elected  form  a  remarkable 
series  of  personalities.  Together  the  assembled 
bishops  are  perhaps  the  most  striking  body  of  negroes 
in  the  world  in  personal  appearance:  men  of  mas- 
sive physique,  clear-cut  faces,  and  undoubted  intelli- 
gence. Altogether  the  church  has  elected  about 
thirty  bishops.  These  men  fall  into  about  five  classes. 
First,  there  were  those  who  represented  the  old  type 
of  negro  preacher  —  men  of  little  learning,  honest  and 
of  fair  character,  capable  of  following  other  leaders. 
Perhaps  five  or  six  of  the  African  Methodist  Episco- 
pal bishops  have  been  of  this  type,  but  they  have 
nearly  all  passed  away.  From  them  developed,  on  the 
one  hand,  four  men  of  aggressive,  almost  riotous 
energy,  who  by  their  personality  thrust  the  church 
forward.  While  such  men  did  much  for  the  physical 
growth  of  the  church,  they  were  often  men  of  ques- 
tionable character,  and  in  one  or  two  instances  ought 
never  to  have  been  raised  to  the  bishopric.  On  the 
other  hand,  in  the  case  of  four  other  bishops,  the 
goodness  of  the  older  class  developed  toward  intense, 
almost  ascetic  piety,  represented  preeminently  in  the 
late  Daniel  Payne,  a  man  of  almost  fanatic  enthusi- 
asm, of  simple  and  pure  life  and  unstained  reputation, 
and  of  great  intellectual  ability.  The  African  Metho- 
dist Episcopal  Church  owes  more  to  him  than  to  any 
single  man,  and  the  class  of  bishops  he  represents  is 
the  salt  of  the  organization.     Such  a  business  plant 

[149] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

naturally  has  called  to  the  front  many  men  of  business 
ability,  and  perhaps  five  bishops  may  be  classed  as 
financiers  and  overseers.  The  rest  of  the  men  who 
have  sat  on  the  bench  rose  for  various  reasons  as  pop- 
ular leaders  —  by  powerful  preaching,  by  pleasing 
manners,  by  impressive  personal  appearance.  They 
have  usually  been  men  of  ordinary  attainment,  with 
characters  neither  better  nor  worse  than  the  middle 
classes  of  their  race.  Once  in  office  they  have  usually 
grown  in  efficiency  and  character.  On  the  whole, 
then,  this  experiment  in  negro  government  has  been 
distinctly  encouraging.  It  has  brought  forward  men 
varying  in  character,  some  good  and  some  bad,  but  on 
the  whole  decency  and  ability  have  been  decidedly  in 
the  ascendancy,  and  the  church  has  prospered.^ 

Equally  significant  of  administrative  capacity  are  the 
multifarious  denominational  activities  of  the  Baptists 
through  their  local  and  state  bodies  and  their  General 
Convention  and  Missionary  Boards.  In  short,  these 
enormous  and  complicated  social  engines  actually  work 
under  exclusively  black  control. 

As  human  institutions,  the  churches  have  made  most 
astounding  strides.  On  the  material  side,  they  count 
M  t  ■  1  FT  IH-  ^o'^^  25,000  church  edifices.  Frequently,  as 
ings  and  in  representative  cities  like  Macon  and  Mo- 

Business  bile,  these   rank   in   quality   with   the   better 

'^  ^^  public    buildings.      The    total    property    of 

the  negro  denominations  is  probably  worth  $40,000,000. 
Their  combined  annual  expenditure  approaches  $10,000,- 
000,  at  least  $250,000  of  which  goes  to  education  under 
church  control.  Negro  Baptists  support  eighty  schools, 
and    the    largest    of    the    Methodist    bodies    twenty-five. 

'  "The  Negro  Church,"  Atlanta  University  Publications,  No.  8,  p.  130. 
"""  [150] 


WHAT    THE    NEGRO    HAS    DONE    FOR    HIMSELF 


Many  of  these  are  of  extremely  low  grade,  doing  but 
crudely  work  which  the  state  ought  to  be  doing  for  its 
citizens.  On  the  contrary,  the  best,  like  Wilberforce  Uni- 
versity, Ohio,  rank  with  the  first  negro  schools  in  the 
country.  The  educational  work  of  the  negro  churches 
has  of  course  had  much  help  from  white  philanthropy, 
especially  that  of  the  North.  To  counterbalance  this, 
however,  it  should  be  noted  that  many  schools  supported 
by  Northern  missionary  agencies  show  a  large  tuition 
income  from  their  negro  pupils. 

About  twenty  official  periodicals  of  standing  and  a 
horde  of  local  sectarian  papers  constitute  probably  the 
most  widely  influential  religious  press  of  America.  The 
Baptist  Publication  House  for  the  difl^usion  of  religious  and 
denominational  literature  is  one  of  the  most  extensive  of 
race  enterprises.  It  occupies  four  brick  buildings  on  one  of 
the  chief  business  thoroughfares  of  Nashville,  Tennessee. 

The  plant  consists  of  a  large  first-class  steam- 
boiler,  two  engines,  a  complete  electric  plant,  a  com- 
plete system  of  telephones,  with  a  well-regulated  set 
of  the  most  improved  power  printing-presses,  a  well- 
regulated  bindery,  with  all  the  machinery  and  equip- 
ment that  is  commonly  attached  to  the  most  modern 
printing  and  publishing  plant,  together  with  a  com- 
plete composing  room,  with  all  of  the  modern  para- 
phernalia, including  linotype  machines.  This  plant, 
with  its  stock,  is  fully  worth  to  the  denomination 
$100,000  and  if  it  were  in  a  stock  company  its  stock, 
if  placed  at  $100,000,  would  sell  in  the  market  at  par, 
and  its  income  would  pay  a  creditable  dividend.^ 

The  annual  circulation  of  religious  publications  through 

this  agency  exceeds  five  and  one-half  million  copies,  while 

'  "The  Negro  Church,"  Atlanta  University  PubHcations,  No.  8,  p.  114. 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

as  employers  of  labor  this  and  similar  ecclesiastical  enter- 
prises furnish  a  means  of  support  to  thousands  of  negroes. 
Descriptions   of   the   working   status   of  typical   negro 
Working  churches,    for    the    rural    district,    the   town 

Status  of  the  and  the  city  respectively,  are  borrowed 
Negro  Church  from  competent  first-hand  studies  by  the 
Atlanta  Conference. 

Thomas  County  is  situated  in  extreme  southwest 
Georgia,  within  twenty  miles  of  the  northern  boun- 
The  Rural  dary  line  of  Florida.     According  to  the 

Church  census    of    1900,   the   negro   population 

was  17,450.  Among  this  population  there  are  ninety- 
eight  churches.  These  churches  represent  all  denom- 
inations, Baptist  predominating,  there  being  only  one 
Episcopal  and  two  Congregational  churches.  This 
number  gives  the  actual  churches  which  we  have  been 
able  to  learn  of.  It  will  be  a  safe  estimate  to  affirm 
that  about  twenty  per  cent  of  this  number  may  be 
added,  of  which  we  failed  to  learn. 

This  will  give  a  church  for  every  one  hundred  and 
fifty  persons,  and  here  it  might  be  said  that,  unlike 
much  of  our  American  population,  the  negro  is  well 
churched.  It  is  his  only  institution  and  forms  the 
center  of  his  public  life.  He  turns  to  it  not  only  for 
his  spiritual  wants,  but  looks  toward  it  as  the  center  of 
his  civilization.  Here  he  learns  the  price  of  cotton  or 
the  date  of  the  next  circus ;  here  is  given  the  latest 
fashion-plates  or  the  announcement  for  candidates  for 
justice  of  the  peace.  In  fact,  the  white  office-seeker 
has  long  since  learned  that  his  campaign  among  the 
negroes  must  be  begun  in  the  negro  church,  and  by  a 
negro  preacher. 

These  ninety-eight  institutions  in  Thomas  County, 
like  those  of  many  other  counties,  have  interesting  his- 


Tin;  Ya.machaw  Section,  Savannah,  Ga. 


^■1  itilri  ■ '^n  mI  8 1  liilll 

Negro  Tenements,  Charleston,  S.  C. 
These  and  twenty  more  have  as  sole  water-supply  an  open  dipping  well 


WHAT    THE    NEGRO    HAS    DONE    FOR     HIMSELF 

tories.  About  half  this  number  represent  the  churches 
whose  beginning  has  been  normal,  the  natural  out- 
growth of  expansion.  The  other  half's  history  is 
checkered.  Their  rise  can  almost  invariably  be  traced 
to  one  or  two  methods.  First,  there  is  the  proverbial 
split.  A  careful  study  of  the  roll  of  membership  in 
many  of  the  churches  will  reveal  the  second  method. 
Some  brother  is  called  to  preach.  This  call  is  so  thun- 
derous, and  the  confidence  that  he  can  make  a  better 
preacher  than  the  present  pastor  so  obtrusive,  that  he 
soon  finds  that  there  is  little  welcome  in  the  sacred 
rostrum  of  the  old  church.  He  therefore  takes  his 
family  and  his  nearest  relatives  and  moves  away. 
Study  the  rolls,  therefore,  of  many  of  the  churches,  and 
you  will  find  that  they  are  largely  family  churches, 
and  that  the  first  preacher  was  some  venerable  patri- 
arch. I  think  one  will  be  perfectly  safe  in  concluding 
that  two-thirds  of  the  growth  in  churches  of  the  vari- 
ous denominations  has  been  made  in  this  way ;  and 
that  little  has  been  accomplished  by  the  church  execu- 
tives as  the  result  of  direct  effort  at  church  extension. 
It  will  be  readily  seen  that  churches  having  their 
origin  in  this  way  merely  duplicate  the  old  institution ; 
often  it  is  not  a  creditable  duplicate.  I  know  of  no 
rural  church  in  Thomas  County  whose  inception  had 
the  careful  nursing  of  an  educated,  cultured  leader. 
Others  have  labored  and  we  have  entered  into  their 
labors.  The  largest  churches  and  the  biggest  preach- 
ers in  Thomas  County  do  little  home  missionary  work 
and  organize  no  new  churches.^ 

Contrasted  with  its   feeble   and   socially   divisive   rural 

The  Village         influence    is    the   typically    central    place    of 

Church  the  church  in  the  small  town,  as  revealed  by 

a  study  of  Farmville,  Virginia. 

*  "The  Nef^o  Church,"  Atlanta  University  Publications,  No.  8,  p.  57. 

__ 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

The  church  is  much  more  than  a  religious  organ- 
ization ;  it  is  the  chief  organ  of  social  and  intellectual 
intercourse.  As  such  it  naturally  finds  the  free  demo- 
cratic organizations  of  the  Baptists  and  Methodists 
better  suited  to  its  purpose  than  the  strict  bonds  of 
the  Presbyterians  or  the  more  aristocratic  and  cere- 
monious Episcopalians.  Of  the  262  families  of  Farm- 
ville,  only  one  is  Episcopalian  and  three  are  Presby- 
terian;  of  the  rest,  twenty-six  are  Methodist  and  218 
Baptist.  In  the  town  of  Farmville  there  are  three 
colored  church  edifices,  and  in  the  surrounding  coun- 
try there  are  three  or  four  others. 

The  cliief  and  overshadowing  organization  is  the 
First  Baptist  Church  of  Farmville.  It  owns  a  large 
brick  edifice  on  Main  Street.  The  auditorium,  which 
seats  about  500  people,  is  tastefully  furnished  in  light 
wood,  with  carpet,  small  organ,  and  stained-glass 
windows.  Beneath  this  is  a  large  assembly  room  with 
benches.  This  building  is  really  the  central  club-house 
of  the  community,  and  in  greater  degree  than  is  true 
of  the  country  church  in  New  England  or  the  West. 
Various  organizations  meet  here,  entertainments  and 
lectures  take  place  here,  the  church  collects  and  dis- 
tributes considerable  sums  of  money,  and  the  whole 
social  life  of  the  town  centers  here.  The  unifying  and 
directing  force  is,  however,  religious  exercises  of  some 
sort.  The  result  of  this  is  not  so  much  that  recrea- 
tion and  social  life  have  become  stiff  and  austere,  but 
rather  that  religious  exercises  have  acquired  a  free 
and  easy  expression  and  in  some  respects  serve  as 
amusement-giving  agencies.  For  instance,  the  camp- 
meeting  is  simply  a  picnic,  with  incidental  sermon  and 
singing ;  the  rally  of  the  country  churches,  called  the 
"big  meeting,"  is  the  occasion  of  the  pleasantest  social 
intercourse,  with  a  free  barbecue;  the  Sunday-school 
convention  and  the  various  preachers'  conventions  are 

[154] 


WHAT    THE    NEGRO    HAS    DONE    FOR    HIMSELF 

occasions  of  reunions  and  festivities.  Even  the  weekly 
Sunday  service  serves  as  a  pleasant  meeting  and 
greeting  place  for  working-people,  who  find  little  time 
for  visiting  during  the  week. 

From  such  facts,  however,  one  must  not  hastily  form 
the  conclusion  that  the  religion  of  such  churches  is 
hollow  or  their  spiritual  influence  bad.  While  under 
present  circumstances  the  negro  church  cannot  be 
simply  a  spiritual  agency,  but  must  also  be  a  social, 
intellectual,  and  economic  center,  it  nevertheless  is  a 
spiritual  center  of  wide  influence;  and  in  Farmville 
its  influence  carries  nothing  immoral  or  baneful.^ 

Atlanta,  with  a  colored  population  in  1900  of  35,727, 
had  fifty-four  negro  churches,  twenty-nine  of  which  were 
The  City  Baptist,  twenty-one  Methodist,  while  four  be- 

Church  longed  to   other   denominations.      The  total 

membership  was  upwards  of  16,000,  of  which  the  Bap- 
tists had  over  10,000.  The  combined  value  of  church 
property  was  upwards  of  $250,000,  and  their  annual  in- 
come nearly  $52,000.  The  most  significant  thing  about 
the  statistics  was  the  fact  that  the  reported  active  mem- 
bership averaged  little  more  than  one-half  the  total  mem- 
bership claimed. 

Detailed  investigations  discover  that  the  Methodist 
membership  is  the  most  homogenous.  It  consists  of  the 
families  of  laborers  with  a  sprinkling  from  the  business 
and  professional  classes.  In  education  they  rank  from 
fair  to  poor.  Most  of  its  ministers  are  men  of  charac- 
ter with  moderate  degrees  of  education.  The  Baptist 
churches,  on  the  contrary,  seem  to  fall  into  two  extremes. 
They  are  either  composed  of  an  extremely  poor  and  de- 

*  "The  Negro  Church,"  Atlanta  University  Publications,  No.  8,  pp. 

81-82. 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

graded  membership,  with  unclean,  miserably  lighted,  and 
unhealthy  places  of  worship,  and  with  pastors  to  match; 
or  of  the  more  influential  classes.  Some  of  the  Baptist 
pastors  are  men  of  commanding  popular  gifts,  but  they 
generally  tend  to  display  rather  than  to  solid  attain- 
ment. A  small  and  select  minority,  the  intellectual  and 
moral  elite  of  Atlanta,  are  in  the  Congregational,  Episco- 
pal, and  Northern  Methodist  churches.  ■'^ 

Passing  from  its  social  and  economic  phases  to  the 
central  question  of  the  negro  churches'  efficiency  as  a 
Moral  and  moral  and  spiritual  power,  we  need  in  fair- 

Spiritual  ness    to    confess    the    shortcomings    of    most 

Efficiency  white  churches  in  these  directions.      Human 

brotherhood  is  undeniably  a  chief  comer-stone  of  the 
Christian  religion,  but  race  antipathy  has  not  yet  been 
overcome  by  the  white  churches,  either  South  or  North. 
The  religious  shortcomings  of  the  negro  churches  have 
been  merely  at  somewhat  different  points  from  those  of 
the  white.     These  points  are  chiefly  five: 

(1)  They  have  frequently  subordinated  worship  to 
amusement.  Tliis  is  partly  due  to  the  poverty  of  the 
race  in  social  institutions.  The  church,  in  order  to  serve 
its  people,  has  had  to  be  a  substitute  for  theater,  lyceum, 
political  club,  and  general  social  center.  It  has  truly 
served  in  these  things  as  well  as  in  its  spiritual  ministries, 
but  it  has  proportionately   overdone   them. 

(2)  Frequently  the  negro  church  has  tolerated  lax 
moral  standards  both  among  ministry  and  membership, 
particularly  in  financial  and  sexual  matters.  This  deep 
stain  is  as  bitterly  confessed  by  the  better  negroes  as  it 
is  bitterly  charged  by  the  white  South.     Direct  evidence 

»  See  "The  Negro  Church,"  Atlanta  University  Publications,  No.  8, 
pp.  78,  79. 


WHAT    THE    NEGRO    HAS    DONE    FOR     HIMSELF 

from  a  wide  field  of  investigation  shows  that  slow  gains 
are  being  made  in  these  matters. 

( 3  )  The  negro  church  has  been  to  a  sad  degree  the  field 
of  selfish  exploitation  by  unprincipled  leaders,  who  sought 
financial  or  political  gains  through  ecclesiastical  power. 
Success  has  more  largely  centered  upon  the  personality 
of  the  pastor  than  in  any  white  denomination.  Churches 
have  been  known  to  gain  as  many  as  a  thousand  members 
under  one  pastor,  only  to  lose  them  all  when  he  left. 
But  institutional  stability  is  rapidly  growing  and  is  curb- 
ing such  abnormal  individual  control. 

(4)  Sometimes  the  negro  church  has  not  only  failed 
to  sense  the  best  tendencies  of  race  development,  but  has 
obstinately  opposed  and  subordinated  them.  Neither  Mr. 
Washington  nor  the  friends  of  higher  education  have 
found  much  genuine  sympathy  in  the  negro  ecclesiastics. 
The  leadership  of  the  race  in  its  larger,  more  fundamental, 
and,  especially,  its  national  relations  has  been  with  the 
schools  rather  than  with  the  church. 

(5)  Finally,  the  negro  church  has  been  almost  entirely 
blind  to  the  fundamental  social  problems  of  the  varied 
and  rapidly  developing  groups  within  the  race.  It  has 
been  of  very  little  service  in  the  adjustment  of  the 
negro  to  his  peculiar  and  trying  city  conditions.  The 
crucial  problems  of  health,  for  example,  and  of  social 
betterment  in  general,  have  remained  almost  untouched. 
Neither  has  the  church  been  an  agent  of  rural  progress. 
At  no  point  has  it  led  in  the  more  serious  attempts 
to  adjust  the  race  to  the  new  conditions  of  its  life  in 
America. 

The  Atlanta  Conference  collected  hundreds  of  opinions 

from    representative   negro   laymen   and   Southern   whites 

on  these  problems  of  the  moral  status  of  the  negro  church. 

__ 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

In  general  they  indicated  hopeful  progress  at  all  the  weak 
points. 

A  striking  feature  of  them  was  the  frequent  recogni- 
tion of  the  exceptional  character  of  the  small  but  grow- 
Exceptional  ing  group  of  negro  churches  affiliated  with 
Character  of  Northern  denominations.  These  constitute 
AffiT^t^  ...  but  two  per  cent  or  less  of  the  negro  church 
Northern  membership   of  America,  but   the   testimony 

Denominations  to  their  greatly  disproportionate  influence 
was  decisive.  A  Southern  planter,  for  example,  answer- 
ing "  No  "  to  all  questions  of  general  improvement  in  the 
negro  church,  made  the  following  exception: 

We  have  one  good,  honest,  and  reliable  negro 
preacher  in  our  community,  and  he  is  trying  to  raise 
the  standard  of  living  among  his  race.  But  he  has 
an  up-hill  business  to  do  so.  The  old  negroes,  as  a 
whole,  are  a  long  ways  better  than  the  young  ones. 
The  negro  preacher  that  I  refer  to  is  O.  Faduma.^ 

Mr.  Faduma  is  principal  of  the  American  Missionary 
Association  school  at  Troy,  North  Carolina,  and  pastor 
Limitation  to  ^^  ^^^  Congregational  Church.  Naturally 
and  within  the  type  of  church  life  which  appeals  to  the 

the  City  masses  of  the  race  repels  the  cultured  negro 

minority  which  is  fully  abreast  with  American  civiliza- 
tion. These  have  largely  affiliated  themselves  with  the 
Northern  denominations  which  have  done  the  most  for 
negro  uplift  and  education.  As  class  institutions,  the 
churches  of  this  select  group  have  their  peculiar  weak- 
nesses and  temptations.  They  lack  contact  with  the  com- 
munity, the  masses  of  which,  in  turn,  denounce  them  as 
"  stuck  up  " ;   they  tend  to  forget  patience  and  sympathy. 

*  "The  Negro  Church,"  Atlanta  University  Publications,  No.  8,  p.  168. 

-_ 


WHAT    THE    NEGRO    HAS    DONE    FOR    HIMSELF 


I  am  acquainted  with  a  considerable  number  of  such 
churches  —  small,  cultured,  sober  congregations,  but  non- 
aggressive,  and  tending  to  be  selfish.  This  is  the  cen- 
tral difficulty  with  all  exceptional  groups.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  for  the  negro  church  to 
develop  standard-bearers,  and  the  tonic  effect  of  the  two 
per  cent  has  been  deeply  felt  by  the  98  per  cent.  Thus 
Professor  Kelly  MUer  writes: 

Presbyterian  and  Congregational  missionary  socle- 
ties  have  spent  many  millions  of  dollars  among  the 
freedmen  of  the  South,  but  the  result  is  seen  rather 
in  the  intellectual  and  moral  uphft  than  in  religious 
proselytism.  The  real  advantage  consists  largely  in 
the  reflex  influence  upon  the  Methodist  and  Baptist 
denominations.^ 

When  therefore  the  leaders  of  such  select  churches 
happen  to  be  men  of  popular  ability,  outreaching  zeal  and 
social  insight,  they  frequently  reach  places  of  command- 
ing influence.  To  them  both  white  and  black  turn  in  the 
hour  of  clash  and  crisis,  and  the  higher  race-statesmenship 
is  largely  of  their  making.  Their  memberships  are  small, 
their  salaries  meager ;  they  are  lonely  men  and  the  color- 
line  draws  cruelly  across  their  hearts,  yet  many  a  high- 
salaried  white  preacher  may  well  envy  them  their  power. 
They  have  social  authority  such  as  is  rarely  given  to  men 
of  equal  ability,  and  many  a  Southern  community  sleeps 
peacefully  to-night  because  a  poorly  paid  but  fully  trained 
and  great-hearted  negro  preacher  stands  as  a  daysman 
between  the  races. 

In  the  interest  and  esteem  of  some  of  the  Northern  mis- 
sionary boards  this  select  type  of  negro  church  has  been 
»  Race  Adjustment,  p.  137. 
[159] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

rather  an  adjunct  to  educational  institutions  or  an  effort 
to  aid  groups  of  graduates  to  maintain  their  ideals  in 
the  midst  of  a  low-grade  society,  than  an  attempt  at  a 
general  denominational  propaganda  among  the  race. 
This  is  confessed  by  the  Congregationalists,  the  attitude 
of  whose  missionary  agency  has  been  the  occasion  of  sharp 
dissatisfaction  on  the  part  of  the  more  aggressive  of 
their  colored  ministry.  These  feel  the  sting  of  ecclesias- 
tical littleness  and  are  ambitious  that  the  best  should 
minister  to  the  average  life  of  the  race.  Depending  or- 
dinarily, as  these  churches  have  done,  upon  the  presence 
of  sufficient  groups  of  cultured  negroes,  they  have  cliiefly 
been  limited  to  the  city. 

Within  a  few  years,  however,  the  extension  of  educa- 
tional influences  combined  with  general  rural  progress  has 
Exceptional  created  a  demand  in  many  country  places 
Cases  of  Rural  for  a  more  intelligent  type  of  religious 
Success  leadership.      Movements   of   revolt   from   the 

domination  of  the  old  illiterate  and  immoral  ministers 
have  turned  to  the  churches  which,  under  Northern  aus- 
pices, have  always  maintained  the  higher  standards.  Thus 
there  has  developed  a  number  of  thriving  groups  of 
strictly  rural  Congregational  churches.  This  body  has 
probably  the  most  select  membership  of  any,  yet  its  suc- 
cess with  the  rank  and  file  of  the  race  has  been  proved 
in  limited  areas.  Such  enterprises  could  now  be  infinitely 
multiplied  if  financial  support  were  provided.  Their  gen- 
eral race  significance  will  be  more  largely  proved  in  the 
future. 

The  story  of  almost  any  one  of  these  rural  enterprises 
shows  splendid  devotion.  Recently,  near  Rockingham, 
North  Carolina,  a  little  church  of  eight  adult  members 
built  a  thousand  dollar  edifice.     The  pastor,  trained  in  a 

fl6ol 


^^^I^^H^^qK^T^iS 

w —    ,      r^^'A^  iy  ^^y^^^^i  T'^^^'^^^^j 

^^^K^nnSl^ 

^^^Tv. 

Hit 

|r,4iB^ 

^^J^*^-   '             ':'!:;uJ"!ii 

Ba|i .-:/  ijf^UI 

IP^HHaHili^^ 

Servants'  Quarters  in  Rear  of  a  Modern  Meaiphis  Home 


The  Cotton  Levee,  New  Orleans,  with  Negro  Longshoremen 


WHAT     THE    NEGRO     HAS    DONE    FOR     HIMSELF 

mission  school,  was  chief  carpenter,  and  every  member  had 
some  physical  share  in  the  construction.  They  worked 
three  or  four  days  in  each  week.  A  deacon  gave  forty 
days'  labor,  besides  working  at  night  till  midnight  or 
after.  His  wife  and  daughters  hauled  the  lumber  from  the 
sawmill.  At  night  the  women  sawed  boards,  held  lights, 
and  cheered  the  men  at  their  task  by  singing  plantation 
melodies.  A  widow,  living  by  washing  and  ironing,  con- 
tributed in  work  and  cash  $20.  The  pastor's  share  was 
$110.  It  was  a  labor  of  apostolic  simplicity  and  sacrifice. 
Out  of  church  extension  funds,  a  great  denomination  gave 
$200  of  the  cost,  yet  the  building  essentially  represents 
what  the  negro  is  doing  for  himself,  and  shows  how  he 
does  it.  Since  its  erection  the  white  neighbors,  in  appre- 
ciative and  friendly  emulation,  have  repaired  and  painted 
their  inferior  church. 

Typical  of  the  transmission  of  influence  to  the  country 
through  the  products  of  the  higher  schools  is  the  story 
of  a  Louisiana  pastor,  Rev.  M.  W.  Whitt,  of  Belle  Place 
Congregational  Church,  New  Iberia,  Louisiana,  as  given 
by  Pres.  Frank  G.  Woodworth: 

Mr.  Whitt  is  a  graduate  of  the  Normal  Depart- 
ment of  Tougaloo  and  of  Howard  Theological  Semi- 
nary. Fifteen  years  ago  he  went  to  Belle  Place  as 
pastor  of  an  American  Missionary  Association  church. 
The  record  of  his  early  days  there  is  of  profound  in- 
terest, but  is  another  story.  So  also  is  the  history 
of  the  religious  transformations  wrought,  though  they 
have  economic  consequences  and  value.  It  is  only 
with  the  more  strictly  economic  side  that  we  have 
present  concern.  When  he  reached  Belle  Place  in 
1892  the  church  organization  was  a  complete  wreck, 
having  gone  from  one  hundred  members  to  three,  and 

n  [161] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

two  of  the  three  were  not  in  regular  standing.  The 
church  building  was  little  more  than  a  cow  shed,  with 
no  ceiling  or  sashes.  There  was  only  one  home  owner 
in  the  parish.  To-day  there  is  an  edifice  that  would 
be  an  honor  to  any  town  or  city  in  the  state,  paid 
for,  every  dollar  paid  by  the  people  themselves,  who 
keep  the  property  well  insured.  The  church  has  now 
eighty-five  members  —  no  slight  achievement  for  col- 
ored Congregationalism,  which  with  its  standards  must 
at  present  grow  slowly  among  the  negroes.  The 
families  number  thirty,  and  fifteen  of  these,  stimulated 
by  Mr.  Whitt's  teaching  and  example,  now  own  their 
own  places.  Three  of  the  home  owners  have  about 
$3000  of  property  each.  Mr.  Whitt  has  a  home  that 
cost  $1500,  owns  twenty  shares  in  a  building  and 
loan  association  (valued  at  $200  dollars  a  share), 
paying  in  twenty  dollars  a  month  for  nearly  the  past 
ten  years  to  secure  it,  and  he  and  his  wife  own  three 
lots  in  New  Orleans,  for  one  of  which  he  has  refused 
$650.  It  is  doubtful  if  many  ministers  have  been  of 
more  economic  value  to  the  community  than  this 
American  Missionary  Association  product,  whose  thrift 
has  in  no  wise  lessened  the  earnestness  of  his  study  or 
of  his  religious  life  and  teaching.  The  work  which 
he  has  done  in  the  suppression  of  vice  and  intemper- 
ance has  been  of  very  definite  economic  value.  To  cite 
but  one  example:  said  a  deacon  of  a  neighboring 
church,  "  I  have  been  in  the  church  eighteen  years, 
and  it  seemed  to  me  that  if  I  did  n't  get  drunk  Christ- 
mas I  had  n't  done  my  duty.  I  was  brought  up  so. 
But  one  Sunday  night  just  before  Christmas  I  went 
to  Brother  Whitt's  church.  I  left  my  flask  of  whisky 
under  the  steps  and  went  in.  I  listened  to  him  tell- 
ing what  Christmas  meant,  how  it  should  be  kept,  and 
how  almost  everybody  about,  including  Christians, 
desecrated  the  day  by  drinking  and  getting  beastly 

[Tm] 


WHAT    THE    NEGRO    HAS    DONE    FOR    HIMSELF 

drunk  and  how  families  are  made  to  suffer.  I  said  in 
that  church  I  would  go  home  and  stop  drinking  and 
stop  renting  land.  To-day  I  have  a  home  that  cost 
$1000,  paid  for,  and  Elder  Whitt  is  the  cause  of  it." 
This  is  typical  of  the  economic  value  of  the  Associa- 
tion's work  through  the  men  it  has  trained. 

To  the  rule  of  social  complacency  and  non-aggressive- 
ness on  the  part  of  the  select  city  churches  there  are  bril- 
A    Ex  liant  exceptions.      The  most  notable  in  the 

tional  City  Congregational      fellowship     is      the     First 

Church  Church,    Atlanta.      It   is    recognized    as    in- 

cluding the  best  negroes  of  the  city,  and  probably  no  col- 
ored church  anywhere  has  a  higher  average  of  character 
and  intelhgence  in  its  ranks.  At  the  same  time  it  has  long 
maintained  a  slum  mission  and  other  persistent  activities 
for  the  uplift  of  the  more  degraded  classes.  Its  pastor, 
the  Rev.  H.  H.  Proctor,  D.D.,  a  Fisk  University  and 
Yale  graduate,  is  a  man  of  race-wide  influence.  He  has 
served  as  assistant  moderator  of  the  national  body  of  his 
denomination.  He  rendered  eminent  service  in  inter- 
racial efforts  for  order  and  justice  after  the  Atlanta  riot. 
The  church  property  occupies  a  central  location  in  the 
city,  and  its  main  edifice  has  just  been  added  to  the  ex- 
isting chapel.  The  completed  property  is  worth  toward 
$70,000,  and  the  equipment  for  institutional  work  makes 
the  church  unique  among  negro  religious  enterprises. 

Such  an  attempt  to  meet  the  social  problems  of  negro 
city  populations  in  an  outreaching  spirit  of  service,  besides 
being  eminently  Christian,  is  of  fundamental  importance 
to  a  race  which  is  popularly  judged  by  its  worst,  for  whom 
its  best  are  held  accountable.  Indeed,  the  deepest  moral 
problem  before  the  better  negro  classes  is  whether  they 
will   withhold    themselves    from    an    energizing    fellowship 

[  163  1 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

with  their  weaker  brethren,  or  whether  they  will  put  their 
own  strength  under  the  need  of  those  whose  fate  they  so 
often  have  to  share. 

Most  of  the  organized  philanthropic  efforts  of  the 
American  negro  have  been  in  connection  with  his  churches ; 
Negro  though     outside     of     church     influence     co- 

Philanthropy  operative  efforts  have  established  many  and 
varied  institutions.  In  all,  the  negro  is  supporting  some 
sixty  homes  and  orphanages,  more  than  thirty  hospitals, 
besides  hundreds  of  cemeteries.  Recently  a  number  of 
commendable  enterprises  for  the  protection  and  redemp- 
tion of  the  child-criminal  have  been  undertaken  by  negro 
women's  clubs  in  various  states. 

Among  the  select  city  groups  flourish  manifold  other 
institutions  of  the  higher  life,  expressing  its  interest  in 
Other  Institu-  literature,  music,  art,  philanthropy,  polite 
tions  of  the  intercourse  and  race  ideals.  The  message  of 
Higher  Life  such  a  negro  poet  as  Dunbar,  of  a  painter 
like  Tanner,  a  composer  like  Coleridge  Taylor,  actors 
like  Walker  and  Williams,  a  scholar  and  essayist  like 
Professor  DuBois  or  a  statesman  like  Mr.  Washington  is, 
of  course,  far  wider  than  the  race.  It  appeals  to  the  whole 
nation  and  indeed  to  the  world.  But  its  first  appeal  is  to 
the  negro  minority,  their  peers.  There  are  thousands  of 
negroes  who  honor  and  appreciate  the  works  of  eminent 
genius  which  their  race  has  produced.  There  are  women's 
clubs  with  complete  national  and  state  organizations  ;  dig- 
nified associations  for  the  discussion  of  public  questions, 
such  as  the  Sumner  Club  of  Charleston,  which  has  a  history 
of  thirty  years.  The  annual  musical  festivals  of  the  Coler- 
idge Taylor  Club  of  Washington  are  superb  artistic  events. 
At   a  banquet   of   the   Strieby   Congregational    Club    one 

might  shut  his  eyes  and  never  be  conscious  that  he  was  not 

-_  . 


WHAT    THE    NEGRO    HAS    DONE    FOR    HIMSELF 

attending  a  similar  occasion  in  Boston.  The  tone  of  ser- 
vice and  preaching  in  the  First  Congregational  Church  of 
Atlanta  would  appeal  to  the  most  exacting  mind.  In  other 
words,  there  are  select  negro  groups  which  not  only  equal 
but  actually  exceed  the  average  of  national  attainment  in 
many  of  the  ideal  realms.  They  think  and  feel  and  enjoy 
as  do  other  select  groups  of  Americans  and  live 
accordingly. 

To  crown  all  this  varied  social  evolution  the  negro  has 
developed  organs  for  the  control  of  his  further  growth. 
Evolution  of  These  appear  as  two  temperamental  parties, 
Organized  —  radicals  and   conservatives  —  whose  chief 

Group  Control  respective  exponents  are  the  "  Niagara 
Movement  "  led  by  Dr.  DuBois  over  against  Mr.  Wash- 
ington and  his  followers.  These  parties  have  found  mul- 
tiform agencies  of  expression  and  appeal  both  to  the  race 
and  to  the  nation ;  a  vigorous  press,  an  extremely  able 
controversial  literature,  devices  for  public  agitation  and 
for  bringing  political  pressure.  One  may  laugh  if  he  will 
at  the  squabbles  of  the  negro  on  his  side  of  the  color-line. 
Yet  through  them  the  race  is  beating  into  shape  a  disci- 
plined and  well-officered  army,  under  experienced  leader- 
ship. It  is  following  the  universal  method  of  learning 
democratic  efficiency.  The  temperamental  extremes  in  any 
group  must  find  themselves,  organize,  and  fight  out  a  bal- 
ance between  themselves.  Thus  the  seethings  of  negro 
sentiment  are  a  deep  factor  in  present  American  history. 
This  "  ostracized  race  in  ferment  "  is  fitting  itself  to  play 
a  larger  part  in  the  common  life.  It  is  forging  weapons 
of  group  consciousness  and  control  which  will  some  day 
give  its  now  voiceless  power,  wisdom,  dignity,  and  weight 
in  the  counsels  of  the  Republic. 

[wT] 


VI.    A   BACKGROUND    FOR   BLACK 

I.    DUBIOUS  VERDICTS  FROM  CONFLICTING  FACTS 

ONE  whose  lot  it  is  sometimes  to  address  Northern 
churches  in  behalf  of  negro  education  soon  learns 
to  his  sorrow  to  distinguish  between  an  audience 
interested  and  an  audience  convinced,  a  distinction  which 
Ten  Thousand  ^^^^^  registers  itself  in  the  size  of  the  col- 
vs.  Ten  lection.      Such   a  description   of  varied  mis- 

Milbon  sionary   activities   as   we   have   attempted   in 

the  earlier  chapter  appeals  to  those  who  are  chiefly  moved 
by  concrete  situations,  but  in  the  minds  of  the  more  judi- 
cious there  frequently  remain  thoughts  like  this  —  and 
sometimes  they  speak  them  forth.  What  is  the  average 
daily  attendance  of  these  schools  you  have  been  telling 
about.''  Probably  ten  thousand.  How  many  negroes  are 
at  present  under  the  direct  influence  of  your  whole  group 
of  missionary  activities.?  Possibly  one  hundred  thousand. 
What  proportion  of  American  negroes  have  reached  a 
normal  standard  of  character  and  civilization.''  We  speak 
roughly  of  the  "  talented  tenth  "  —  possibly  one  million. 
And  how  many  negroes  are  there  in  America.''  Nearly  ten 
million.  Are  the  things  which  are  true  of  the  ten  thousand, 
the  hundred  thousand,  and  the  million,  true  also  of  the  ten 
million.''  However  promising  the  exception,  however  suc- 
cessful the  agencies  of  uplift  with  the  few,  however  inter- 
esting and  worthy  the  work  for  which  support  is  asked, 
what  about  general  race  tendencies.''  Assure  us,  if  you  can, 
that  your  hopeful  story  is  not  related  to  a  mere  frag- 
ment of  the  race  —  say,  that  which  shares  wliite  blood  — 

while    the    main    currents    of    the    American    negro's    life 

-— 


A    BACKGROUND    FOR    BLACK 


plunge  down  toward  the  abyss.  In  answer  to  such  just 
and  inevitable  questions,  it  is  the  purpose  of  this  chapter 
to  declare  the  things  which  are  true  of  the  ten  million. 

The  critics  and  the  defenders  of  the  American  negro 
have  fought  a  drawn  battle  hitherto,  and  chiefly  because 
Unconvincing  of  defective  tactics  on  both  sides.  On  the 
Optimism  one  hand  there  is  the  Booker  T.  Washington 

school  of  optimists,  whose  chief  resource  has  been  the 
cataloguing  of  case  after  case  of  negro  success.  Here  is 
this  man  and  that  man  and  another  negro  who  have  made 
good.  Every  time  Mr.  Washington  comes  North  he  has  a 
new  lot  of  men.  Every  article  he  writes  has  new  cases. 
Stubbornly  and  truthfully  he  reiterates  from  year  to  year 
the  story  of  thousands  upon  thousands  of  successful  ne- 
groes. The  trouble  with  this  method  is  that  over  against 
it  one  can  bring  a  case  of  failure  to  offset  each  case  of 
success,  and  probably  the  failures  are  in  one's  own  kitchen 
or  barnyard,  while  the  successful  ones  are  far  away.  The 
outcome  is  that  this  method  does  not  convince.  It  has  not 
convinced  the  South  where  most  of  the  successful  negroes 
are,  and  the  nation  at  large,  though  impressed,  is  unsatis- 
fied. The  mere  enumeration  of  hopeful  facts,  however 
massive,  cannot  justify  optimism.  It  is  not  enough  to 
enumerate;    one  must  weigh  the  facts. 

If  it  be  true  that  no  people  less  than  half  a  century  out 
of  bondage  ever  made  such  magnificent  gains  as  the 
Doubts  as  to  American  negro  has,  it  is  just  as  true  of 
Relative  Americans    in    general.      There    is    no    such 

Progress  human  record  as  that  which  our  country  has 

made  since  the  Civil  War.  Has  the  progress  of  the  negro 
been  in  proportion  to  the  general  progress?  In  spite  of 
his  tremendous  absolute  gains,  has  he  really  kept  pace 
with  the  rest  of  the  nation?     I  confess  that  I  am  not  so 

[1671 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

sure.  When,  thinking  of  the  negro,  we  proclaim :  "  Saul 
has  slain  his  thousands,"  must  we  not  also  add:  "And 
David  his  ten  thousands  "  ?  As  things  are  now  going, 
would  not  white  America  gradually  pull  ahead  of  negro 
America,  and  forever  increase  the  gap  between? 

But  optimism  faces  a  still  deeper  difficulty,  namely: 
That  the  present  deficiencies  of  the  negro  — -  which  his  best 
friends  must  measure  and  confess  —  are  in  matters  so 
serious  and  so  fundamental  that  if  present  tendencies  hold, 
he  is  certainly  doomed.  No  amount  of  progress  on  other 
lines  could  possibly  overcome  bis  deep  failure  in  these  fun- 
damental respects.  When  the  dark  charges  against  him 
are  formulated,  they  are  found  to  be  chiefly  three: 

1.  He  is  deficient  in  physical  stamina; 

2.  He  lacks  the  fundamental  economic  virtues ; 

3.  He  is  excessively  immoral. 

Whoever  is  deficient  in  these  things  is  doomed,  if  his  de- 
ficiencies continue. 

For  the  first  and  third  charges  there  exists  what  looks 
like  authoritative  proof.  According  to  the  census  statis- 
A  Fighting  ties,  the  American  negro's  death-rate  is  twice 

Chance  that  of  the  white  population ;   and  his  prison 

population  is  two  and  one-half  times  as  great  as  liis  pro- 
portion in  the  general  population.  His  economic  weakness 
is  supposed  to  be  established  by  the  facts  that  his  numbers 
have  absolutely  decreased  in  some  of  the  skilled  trades 
and  relatively  decreased  in  others ;  that,  especially  in  the 
Northern  cities,  skilled  negro  workmen  are  frequently 
forced  out  of  trades  into  j  anitor's  and  porter's  work ;  and 
that  the  South  widely  testifies  that  as  a  laborer  the  negro 
is  deteriorating.  These  are  grave  charges  and  supported 
by  ugly  facts.  They  are  frequently  and  unnecessarily 
overstated.    At  best  they  are  bad  enough,  and  nothing  but 


A    BACKGROUND    FOR    BLACK 


the  most  adequate  answer  to  them  will  avail  to  save  pop- 
ular faith  in  the  negro.  No  critic  of  the  race  can  be  more 
anxious  to  have  the  nation  know  how  precarious  the 
negro's  future  is,  than  his  friends  should  be.  It  is  no  easy 
battle  he  has  before  him ;  therefore  he  needs  our  help  the 
more  desperately.  The  most  any  one  dare  contend  for  him 
is  that  he  has  a  fighting  chance. 

II.    NEED  OF  A  SOCIOLOGICAL  BACKGROUND 

Whether  such  a  fighting  chance  will  be  allowed  depends 

ultimately  not  upon  the  naked  facts,  nor  even  upon  the 

„, .,       ,  discovery  that  some  of  them  are  seriously  ad- 

rhilosophy  ''  ,      ,       -^ 

always  Present  verse  to  the  negro,  but  upon  their  interpre- 
in  the  Interpre-  tation.  For,  after  all  is  said  and  done,  every 
tation  of  Facts      .i-    i  .i  ui  i. 

tnmker  on  the  race  problem,  however  scien- 
tific and  unbiased,  consciously  or  unconsciously  brings  a 
social  philosophy  to  the  interpretation  of  his  facts.  He 
puts  them  on  a  certain  background,  and  the  background 
gives  them  their  color.  Any  woman  can  testify  that  a 
piece  of  dress  goods  in  the  shops  does  not  look  as  it  will 
when  it  is  made  up  and  worn.  Its  appearance  changes  with 
its  setting.  In  the  laboratory,  patches  of  different  colors 
are  put  upon  different  backgrounds  and  are  found  to  take 
on  complementary  hues.  I  recall  a  story  with  a  plot  hke 
this :  A  woman  desiring  to  humiliate  her  social  rival  set 
about  it  by  discovering  the  color  of  her  rival's  best  frock. 
Then  she  invited  her  to  a  place  of  ostensible  honor  at  a 
social  function  and  set  her  over  against  a  background 
which  turned  her  charms  into  horrors.  This  is  what  the 
popular  judgment,  and  frequently  social  investigators  as 
well,  have  done  for  the  negro.  They  have  put  the  distress- 
ing facts  of  his  present  deficiencies  upon  the  background 

__ 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

of  a  racial  interpretation  which  makes  them  look  blacker 
than  they  are. 

The  real  issue  is  whether  the  negro's  present  deficiencies 
—  which  certainly  doom  him  if  like  tendencies  hold  —  are 
The  Real  inevitable  and  necessarily  permanent,  or  re- 

Issue  mediable  and  only  temporary.     Do  they  be- 

long to  the  negro  as  a  negro  ?  Are  they  due  to  hereditary 
traits,  predestined  or  unescapable  tendencies  of  blood ;  or 
to  social  handicaps,  to  conditions  which  men  can  control? 
If  the  latter  the  negro  has  a  fighting  chance,  and  it  is  the 
duty  of  just  men  to  help  him  in  his  fight. 

The  dominant  social  doctrine  of  yesterday  held  the  for- 
mer view  and  recent  champions  of  the  South,  with  much 
The  Failure  of  ^^^^  ^^  belated  learning,  still  reiterate  it. 
Race  as  an  But  a  revolutionary  change  meanwhile  has 
Explanation  come  over  the  science  of  sociology  by  which 
an  ever-narrowing  sphere  is  allotted  to  heredity,  and  an 
ever-increasing  sphere  ascribed  to  social  control.  One  of 
the  brilliant  younger  sociologists.  Prof.  E.  A.  Ross  of 
Wisconsin  University  (the  man  who  coined  the  term 
"  race  suicide,"  and  started  a  President  a-preaching  to 
the  nation  on  that  evil),  summarizing  a  world-wide  sur- 
vey of  recent  tendencies  in  sociology,  puts  the  case 
thus : — 

The  superiorities  that,  at  a  given  time,  one  people 
may  display  over  other  peoples,  are  not  necessarily 
racial.^ 

More  and  more  the  time-honored  appeal  to  race  is 
looked  upon  as  the  resource  of  ignorance  or  indolence. 
To  the  scholar  the  attributing  of  the  mental  and 
moral  traits  of  a  population  to  heredity  is  a  confes- 
sion  of   defeat,   not   to   be  thought   of  until  he   has 

'  Ross,  Foundations  of  Sociology,  p.  353. 


A    BACKGROUND    FOR    BLACK 


wrung   from   every   factor   of  life   its   last   drop   of 
explanation.^ 

Note  the  order  of  explanation ;  for  this  Is  the  kernel  of 
the  thought.  We  are  to  cry  "  race  "  last  of  all,  after  we 
have  reckoned  with  every  other  factor,  every  nearer  and 
more  obvious  cause.  Then  if  there  is  something  left  of  the 
negro's  deficiency,  which  belongs  to  him  as  a  negro,  one 
must  confess  it ;  but  not  until  from  every  social  factor  has 
been  wrung  its  last  drop  of  significance. 

In  the  present  issue,  merely  to  set  the  negro's  defi- 
ciencies against  their  specific  sociological  background  is 
to  steal  away  much  of  their  sharpness.  This  does  not 
mean  that  the  race  factor  has  no  influence,  but  that,  when 
the  general  charge  of  malign  race  traits  is  forced  to  be- 
come explicit,  when  each  alleged  hereditary  shortcoming 
is  isolated  and  the  nearest  and  most  obvious  explanation 
applied  to  it,  the  racial  residuum,  if  any,  is  harmless. 

ra.    ALLEGED  RACIAL  TRAITS  AND  THEIR  SOCIO- 
LOGICAL EXPLANATIONS 

1.    The  Negroes  Inferior  Physical  Stamina 

Black  Americans  have  a  double  death-rate.  Waiving 
the  facts  that  the  statistics  on  which  this  conclusion  is 
based  are  inadequate  (and  the  census  confesses  as  much), 
the  best  conclusion  available  is  that,  though  the  death- 
rates  of  both  are  declining,  black  Americans  are  now 
dying  nearly  if  not  quite  twice  as  fast  as  white.^     This 

*  Ross,  Foundations  of  Sociology,  p.  309. 

*  Census  Bulletin  8,  Negroes  in  the  United  States,  p.  64 ;  Willcox,  "  Census 
Statistics  of  the  American  Negro,"  in  Stone,  Studies  in  the  American  Race 
Problem,  pp.  490  ff. 

[rrT] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

proportion  holds  for  the  total  population  and  also  for 
infants. 

In  such  cities  as  Savannah,  Georgia,  five  negroes  die  to 
every  three  whites.  Considering  the  most  fatal  diseases,  it 
is  found  that  the  negro  proportion  of  death  from  tuber- 
culosis is  three  to  one ;  from  marasmus  —  a  wasting  dis- 
ease, generally  of  children  —  five  to  three ;  from  malarial 
fever,  five  to  three ;  from  pneumonia,  two  to  one.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  in  recent  United  States 
army  examinations  of  candidates  for  enlistment  negroes 
have  made  a  slightly  better  showing  than  whites.  A  South- 
ern commentator  thinks  tliis  is  because  military  service 
appeals  to  the  best  class  of  negroes,  but  only  to  the 
poorer  class  of  whites.  Again,  it  is  most  pertinent  to  note 
that  extra-excessive  mortality  is  chiefly  a  city  phenome- 
non. Nothing,  however,  at  present  known  can  obviate  the 
conclusion  that  the  negro's  outlook  for  health,  though  not 
hopeless,  is  extremely  dubious. 

This  excessive  death-rate  is  by  no  means  overcome,  as 
some  suppose,  by  the  still  more  excessive  negro  birth- 
The  Nearo's  rate.  The  birth-rate  of  both  races  is  declin- 
Double  Death-  ing,  but  that  of  the  negro  much  more 
*'^*®  rapidly. 

During  the  last  twenty  years  of  the  nineteenth 
century  the  decline  in  the  proportion  of  Southern 
negro  children  was  160  and  that  in  the  proportion 
of  Southern  white  children  only  75.^ 

While  the  black  population  of  the  South  has  doubled 
since  the  Civil  War,  the  white  population,  virtually  without 

'  Willcox,  "Census  Statistics  of  the  Negro,"  in  Stone,  Studies  in  the 
American  Race  Problem,  p.  507. 

[172] 


A    BACKGROUND    FOR    BLACK 


the  aid  of  immigration,  has  tripled.  If  this  ratio  continues 
the  negro  is  doomed  to  be  an  ever-diminishing  fraction  of 
the  population.  Between  1890  and  1900  the  relative  in- 
crease in  the  South  Atlantic  states  was,  negro  14  per 
cent,  white  20  per  cent ;  in  the  South  Central  states, 
negro  20  per  cent,  whites  30  per  cent. 

The  final  result,  as  shown  in  the  relative  proportion  of 
the  race  in  the  South,  is,  therefore,  that  the  negro  is  losing 
Racial  Inter-  ground.  What  now  is  the  significance  of 
pretation  of  the  these  facts  ?  Is  it  that  the  negro  has  an 
Death-rate  inferior  constitution,  that  nature  made  him 

a  weakling,  that  God  is  responsible  and  no  one  can  help 
it.''  On  the  assumption  that  inferior  physical  stamina  is 
a  racial  trait.  Southern  oracles,  following  a  Northerner, 
Prof.  W.  F.  Willcox  of  Cornell,  have  prophesied  the 
ultimate  extinction  of  the  negro  in  America,  It  is  in- 
teresting, however,  to  note  how  vastly  the  ardor  of  a 
prophet  enlarges  the  cautious  conclusion  of  the  statisti- 
cian. Should  the  present  ratio  of  increase  in  the  two  races 
prevail  until  2000  a.d.  there  would  then  be  in  the  South 
thirty-three  million  negroes  to  one  hundred  and  fifty-five 
million  whites,  but  the  negro  would  constitute  only  17.6 
per  cent  of  the  population  of  which  he  now  constitutes 
32.4  per  cent.  Two  thousand  a.d.  is  a  long  way  off,  and 
a  negro  population  of  17.6  per  cent  might  still  constitute 
a  race  problem  of  considerable  difficulty.  No  one  can 
safely  prophesy  whether  or  not  the  present  ratio  of  in- 
crease will  continue.  A  good  many  things  are  likely  to 
happen  to  modify  it.  Yet  to  the  author  of  "  The  Color- 
Line  "  it  seems  certain  that  "  the  general  movement  of  the 
life  of  a  continent  is  toward  the  elimination  of  the 
African-American."^      Dr.    Smith's   jubilation   at   such   a 

'  Smith,  The  Color-Line,  p.  21.5. 

[ml 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

divinely  ordained  result  is  both  sincere  and  ludicrous ;  and 
even  a  just  and  generous  mind  like  President  Alderman's 
cannot  forbear  to  utter  a  note  of  sectional  exaltation  at  the 
alleged  prospect. 

Are  Professor  Smith  and  President  Alderman  willing 
to  undertake  and  to  work  to  their  legitimate  finish  per- 
fectly obvious  measures  tending  to  defeat  their  own 
prophesies?  A  considerable  part,  at  least,  of  the  negro's 
present  death-rate  is  absolutely  unnecessary ;  its  present 
causes  are  very  largely  environmental,  such  as  bad  sani- 
tation, poor  housing,  lack  of  proper  clothing  and  food. 

In  the  mayor's  report  of  the  city  of  Savannah  for 
1906,  one  reads  something  like  this :  "  Ours  is  one  of  the 
most  crowded  cities  in  the  South.  Its  oldest 
districts,  especially,  furnish  too  little  light 
and  air  for  the  health  of  the  people.  It  is  now  recognized 
also  that  the  furnishing  of  means  of  recreation  to  its  citi- 
zens is  part  of  the  function  of  a  modern  city.  We  need 
more  parks  both  for  the  physical  and  the  moral  good  of 
the  people."  But  who  occupies  the  more  crowded  quar- 
ters of  old  Savannah.?  The  negro.  Is  he  allowed  to  use 
the  present  municipal  parks,  and  will  he  be  admitted  to 
the  new  ones.''  No.  A  negro  or  two  may  pass  through  a 
park  of  Savannah,  but  by  unwritten  law  the  negro  popu- 
lation is  forbidden  to  make  the  parks  places  of  recreation. 
They  cannot  use  them  for  any  purpose  for  which  they  are 
ordained  and  supported,  partly  by  negro  taxes.  Are 
parks  for  the  majority.''  Then  they  are  for  the  negro.  Are 
they  for  the  more  needy.'*  He  is  most  needy.  A  Savannah 
negro  mother  cannot  take  her  child  to  a  park  as  a  relief 
from  her  stifling  alley ;  she  may  take  a  white  child.  The 
new  municipal  playgrounds,  for  which  the  mayor  pleads, 
will  not  be  available  for  black  boys.     A  group  of  colored 

[174] 


A    BACKGROUND    FOR    BLACK 


young  people  cannot  enjoy  a  picnic  there  under  the  sway- 
ing moss  of  the  Hve-oaks ;  a  gang  of  colored  laborers 
cannot  rest  there  at  noontime.  Yet  the  alleys  of  Savan- 
nah are  lined  with  negro  houses.  The  block  in  which 
Beach  Institute  is  located,  and  every  block  in  that  region, 
has  long  rows  of  disreputable  alley  tenements,  where  filth 
and  bad  sanitation  contaminate  the  air,  and  menace  the 
crowded  and  racidly  increasing  colored  population.  A 
visitor  writes, 

The  last  time  I  was  entertained  at  the  Mission 
Home  my  colored  next-door  neighbor  emptied  her 
dish-water  from  a  window  less  than  six  feet  from 
my  own  down  into  a  sunless  place  between  buildings. 
What  does  Savannah  expect.''  Why  should  not  the 
Savannah  negro  die.'' 

Social  investigators  have  explored  such  alley  homes  time 
and  time  again,  and  probation  officers  have  followed  the 
records  of  children  who  come  out  of  them.  There  is  no 
obscurity  about  their  fruits.  It  is  a  suggestive  fact  that 
the  municipal  jail  is  not  far  away. 

Dr.  W.  F.  Brunner,  the  city  health  officer,  understands 
the  case  perfectly  well  and  puts  it  thus: 

We  face  the  following  issues:  First,  one  set  of 
people,  the  Caucasian,  with  a  normal  death-rate  of 
less  than  sixteen  per  thousand  per  annum,  and  right 
alongside  of  them  is  the  negro  race  with  a  death-rate 
of  twenty-five  to  thirty  per  thousand.  Second:  The 
first  named  race  furnishing  a  normal  amount  of  crimi- 
nals and  paupers,  and  the  second  race  of  people  fur- 
nishing an  abnormal  percentage  of  lawbreakers  and 
paupers. 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

Is  the  negro  receiving  a  square  deal?  Let  a 
commission  investigate  the  houses  he  hves  in :  Why, 
in  his  race,  is  tuberculosis  increasing;  why  furnishes 
he  his  enormous  quota  to  the  chain-gang  and  the 
penitentiary ;  investigate  the  industrial  insurance 
companies,  the  money  lenders,  the  instalment  furni- 
ture dealers,  and,  finally,  the  matter  of  the  surplus 
population,  which  is  a  most  potent  factor  in  produc- 
ing that  class  of  persons  which  is  dangerous  to  this 
community  and  must  contaminate  its  health  and 
prosperity.   .  .  . 

The  negro  is  with  you  for  all  time.  He  is  what  you 
will  make  him,  and  it  is  "  up  "  to  the  white  people  to 
prevent  him  from  becoming  a  criminal  and  to  guard 
him  against  tuberculosis,  syphilis,  etc.  If  he  is  tainted 
with  disease  you  will  suffer;  if  he  develops  criminal 
tendencies  you  will  be  affected.  You  cannot  observe 
these  things  without  going  where  he  lives  in  colonies 
in  this  city.  Investigate  them,  and  you  will  soon 
learn  that  if  he  desired  to  improve  his  sanitary  con^ 
dition  he  could  not  do  it.  Observe  the  house  he  must 
live  in;  the  food  that  he  must  eat,  and  learn  of  all 
his  environments. 

This  is  no  sentimental  dissertation;  it  is  a  state- 
ment of  cold-blooded  facts  that  is  of  as  much  value  to 
the  whites  as  it  is  to  the  negroes.^ 

The  cemetery  is  open.  The  mayor's  report  takes  pains 
to  say  that,  whereas  the  white  portion  has  been  beautified 
with  trees  and  shrubs,  the  negro  portion  has  been  kept 
clean  and  in  good  condition,  and  fenced  off  and  separated 
from  the  other  by  a  new  barbed  wire  fence,  "  making  each 
portion  distinctive,"  Here  the  Savannah  negro's  body  is 
laid  away  after  being  poisoned  to  death.     There  is  noth- 

»  Mayor's  Report,  1907,  pp.  162-164. 
__ 


A    BACKGROUND    FOR    BLACK 


ing  racial  about  it.     Any  one  would  die  who  had  the  same 

kind  of  experience. 

I  know  a  Charleston  alley  lined  with  thirty-two  negro 

tenement  houses.     In  the  midst  of  the  alley,  its  sole  source 

of   water  supply,   is   an   open    dipping   well, 
Charleston  i    i  i  •    ±_         •      i  i         /^      ii  • 

surrounded  by  a  sixteen-mch  curb.     Un  this 

curb  all  the  people  of  the  thirty-two  houses  do  their  wash- 
ing. They  dip  into  the  well  any  dish  that  comes  to  hand, 
and  any  contaminated  cup  from  any  one  of  the  thirty-two 
families  might  give  disease  to  all;  but  specific  contamina- 
tion would  not  make  much  difference,  for  the  water  in  the 
well  all  leaches  in  from  the  near-by  marshes  which  are 
dumping-grounds  for  the  city  filth.  Further  interesting 
facts  about  Charleston  are  set  forth  with  rather  muck- 
rakish  fervor  in  a  recent  article  by  Samuel  Hopkins 
Adams : 

In  the  matter  of  the  cisterns,  for  instance.  Charles- 
ton now  has  a  good  city  water  supply  fairly  free  from 
contamination  where  it  starts,  and  safely  filtered  be- 
fore it  reaches  the  city.  But  a  great  many  of  "  our 
best  citizens  "  prefer  their  own  cisterns,  on  the  grand- 
father principle.  These  are  underground,  for  most 
part,  and  are  regularly  supplied  from  the  roof  drain- 
age. Also  they  are  intermittently  supplied  by  leak- 
age from  adjacent  privy  vaults,  Charleston  having  a 
very  rudimentary  and  fractional  sewerage  system. 
Therefore  typhoid  is  not  only  logical  but  inevitable. 
I  have  no  such  revolutionary  contempt  for  private 
rights  as  to  deny  the  privilege  of  any  gentleman  to 
drink  such  form  of  sewage  as  best  pleases  him ;  but 
when  it  comes  to  supplying  the  public  schools  with 
this  poison,  the  affair  is  somewhat  different.  Yet,  as 
far  as  the  Charleston  Board  of  School  Commissioners 
has  felt  constrained  to  go,  up  to  date,  is  this:    They 

12  [ 177  ] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

have  written  to  the  city  physician  asking  that  "  oc- 
casional inspection "  of  the  cisterns  be  made,  and 
decorating  their  absurd  request  with  ornamental 
platitudes. 

With  sewage  it  is  the  same  situation.  There  is, 
indeed,  a  primitive  sewer  system  in  part  of  the  city, 
but  any  attempt  to  extend  it  meets  with  a  determined 
and  time-rooted  opposition.  The  Charlestonians  are 
afraid  of  sewer  gas,  but  apparently  have  no  fear  of 
the  filth  which  generates  sewer  gas ;  said  filth  accumu- 
lated in  Charleston's  streets  subject  only  to  the  at- 
tention of  the  dissipated-looking  buzzards,  which  are 
one  of  the  conservative  and  local  features  of  the  place. 
I  have  seen  these  winged  scavengers  at  work.  It  is 
not  an  appetizing  sight.   .   .   . 

Throughout  the  South  figures  and  conditions  alike 
are  complicated  by  the  negro  problem.  Southern 
cities  keep  a  separate  roster  of  mortalities,  one  for 
the  whites,  one  for  the  blacks.  In  so  far  as  they 
expect  to  be  judged  by  the  white  rate  alone,  this  is 
a  manifestly  unfair  procedure,  since,  allowing  for  a 
certain  racial  excess  of  liability  to  disease,  the  negro 
in  the  South  corresponds,  in  vital  statistics,  to  the 
tenement  dweller  in  the  great  cities.  If  New  Orleans 
is  to  set  aside  its  negro  mortality,  the  death-rate 
among  those  living  in  the  least  favorable  environ- 
ment, New  York  should  set  apart  the  deaths  in  the 
teeming  rookeries  east  of  the  Bowery,  the  most 
crowded  district  in  the  world,  and  ask  to  be  judged 
on  the  basis  of  what  remains  after  that  exclusion. 
New  York,  however,  would  be  glad  to  diminish  the 
mortality  in  its  tenements.  ;'  New  Orleans,  Atlanta, 
Charleston,  or  Savannah  would  be  loath  to  diminish 
their  negro  mortality../  That  is  the  frank  statement  of 
what  may  seem  a  brutal  fact.-^ 

'  McClure's  Magazine,  vol.  xxxi,  pp.  250-251. 


A    BACKGROUND    FOR    BLACK 


If  your  mother,  going  out  to  work  by  the  day,  left  you, 
an  infant  in  the  cradle,  and  a  clumsy  father,  a  careless 
Workino-  elder  sister,  or  a  none  too  thoughtful  neigh- 

Mothers  and  bor,  had  the  care  of  you,  you  might  not  get 
Dying  Infants  proper  things  to  eat,  nor  at  the  proper 
time.  You  might  die.  You  would  then  ornament  a  sta- 
tistical table,  and  be  pointed  out  as  a  racial  tendency ; 
perhaps  even  charged  up  to  the  divine  decrees.  In  pro- 
portion to  population,  more  white  women  work  in  Fall 
River,  Massachusetts,  and  more  white  babies  die  than 
anywhere  else  in  the  Union.  The  negro  married  woman  is 
a  breadwinner  eight  times  as  frequently  as  a  white  mar- 
ried woman,  and  her  infants  but  follow  the  white's  example. 
Thus  the  negro's  phenomenal  death-rate  is  largely  a  nec- 
essary consequence  of  the  economic  condition  of  his  family. 
Part  of  the  negro's  excessive  death-rate  must  certainly 
be  credited  to  the  mental  effect  of  the  sharp  social  tran- 
sition which  he  has  undergone  since  his 
emancipation.  Freedom  brought  new  re- 
sponsibilities to  which  the  race  was  unwonted, 
and  the  nation  made  no  provision  for  the 
economic  future  of  the  ex-slave.  He  ceased 
to  be  a  chattel  only  to  become  a  pauper;  but  the  death 
that  he  suffers  as  a  poor  man  must  not  be  credited  to 
him  as  a  negro.  Its  causes  are  social  rather  than  racial. 
The  nation  needs  to  learn  that  men,  including  negroes, 
die  for  lack  of  hope.  Depressed  by  their  unequal  struggle 
against  poverty  and  social  prejudices,  many  a  black  man 
loses  all  heart  to  live.  Any  one  who  has  observed  the 
feeble  hold  on  life  frequently  exhibited  by  negro  students 
will  be  convinced  that  the  causes  of  death  are  largely  men- 
tal. Life  simply  does  not  hold  out  sufficient  incentive  to 
keep   breath  in  the  body.      Southern   observers   have  fre- 


The  Effects  of 
Sudden  Transi 
tion,  and  of 
Discourage- 
ment 


[179] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

quently  noted  the  loss  of  cheerfulness  since  the  emancipa- 
tion, and  have  credited  it  to  the  negro's  incapacity  to 
meet  the  responsibilities  of  freedom.  To  me  it  seems 
rather  an  unnecessary  tragedy  growing  out  of  social  prej- 
udice. It  is  the  rebujff  of  his  aspiration  by  the  white  man 
which  discourages  the  negro  to  death. 

The  part  which  vice  plays  in  the  death-rate  is  by  no 
means  to  be  minimized,  and  it  has  not  been  either  by  the 
Vice  and  the  negro  or  his  Northern  friends.  A  majority 
Death-rate  of    the    rejections    of    candidates    for    enlist- 

ment in  the  army  was  on  account  of  venereal  diseases. 
Immorality  is  an  arch  enemy  of  the  race.  Nevertheless, 
the  zeal  of  the  moral  teacher  may  easily  overstate  the 
fact  and  miss  the  remedy.  It  will  not  do  to  assume  that 
vice  is  a  racial  trait.  Perhaps,  like  death,  it  may  be  traced 
to  specific  causes.     However  ominous,  it  is  still  preventable. 

Now  when  one  subtracts  the  deaths  which  are  due  to 
poverty,  to  bad  sanitation  and  to  preventable  diseases ; 
The  Racial  those  which  are  due  to  social  hardships 
Residuum  which     brotherliness     may     overcome ;     and 

those  which  are  due  to  vice  which  the  race  may  conquer, 
how  much  is  left  as  a  general  racial  residuum  indicating 
inferior  physical  stamina  in  the  negro  as  such?     C  /  • 

With  respect  to  America  as  a  physical  environment,  I 
believe  we  should  admit  that  his  deficiency  is  partially 
racial,  in  that  the  negro  is  only  partially  adapted  to  it. 
The  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  is  eighteen  hundred  miles 
north  of  the  mouth  of  the  Niger  —  as  far  as  from  New 
Orleans  to  Manitoba.  When  any  people  cross  an  ocean, 
even  on  the  same  isotherm,  the  new  country  puts  it  through 
a  physical  sifting.  There  are  new  diseases  as  well  as  new 
social  conditions.  Every  migration  is  a  selective  crisis; 
how  much  more  a  migration  accompanied  by  an  extreme 

[180] 


A    BACKGROUND    FOR    BLACK 


climatic  change  as  that  from  Africa  to  America?  The 
race  as  a  whole  has  not  been  here  long  enough  to  complete 
its  physical  sifting.  Slaves  still  filtered  in  even  to  the  out- 
break of  the  Civil  War,  and  slavery,  which  sifted  its  vic- 
tims barbarously  along  other  lines,  screened  them  some- 
what from  nature's  stern  work.^  No  people  has  ever  been 
saved  wholesale,  and  the  negro  cannot  expect  to  be,  espe- 
cially as  he  expands  his  geographical  range,  as  in  his 
present  rapid  migrations.  In  the  cities  of  the  North,  he 
is  subject  to  a  fierce  climatic  sifting.  Thus  his  death- 
rate  in  Chicago  and  Newark  is  almost  as  bad  as  it  is  in  the 
less  sanitary  Southern  cities.  Social  causes  of  mortality 
are  reenforced  by  geographical  causes  there.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  negro  already  has  a  physical  advantage  in 
the  hotter,  moister,  and  lower  parts  of  the  South.  With 
respect  to  these  environments,  it  is  the  white  man  who  is 
sub j  ect  to  a  climatic  sifting ;  and,  of  the  two,  the  negro  has 
probably  the  greater  capacity  for  acclimatization.  Ross 
thinks  "  lack  of  adaptability  a  handicap,  which  the  white 
man  must  ever  bear  in  competing  with  black,  yellow,  or 
brown  men,"^  and  calls  our  race  "physiologically  inelastic." 
Again,  the  sifting  of  the  negro  by  his  new  responsi- 
bilities as  freedman  is  equally  inevitable.  Brotherliness, 
we  argue,  could  prevent  some  of  the  deaths  from  hopeless- 
ness, but  no  one  can  guarantee,  nor  should  be  led  to  expect, 
that  the  whole  race  should  be  able  to  adapt  itself  to  the 
part  of  freemen  in  a  strenuous  civilization.  Of  Israel's 
captivity  also  it  was  written,  "  A  remnant  shall  return." 
The  conclusion  would  seem  to  be  that  social  justice  could 
cut  down  the  excessive  negro  death-rate  largely,  but  not 
entirely. 

*  See  Tillinghast,  The  Negro  in  Africa  and  America,  ch.  iv. 
'  Ross,  The  Foundations  of  Sociology,  p.  3.58. 

Tisn 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

I  am  afraid  that  social  justice,  which  is  still  lacking  for 
the  poor  white,  will  not  reach  the  negro  very  soon.  As- 
The  Physical  suming  only  a  slow  and  gradual  improve- 
Future  of  the  ment  of  conditions,  what  do  the  facts  suggest 
Negro  g^g    ^Q   i\^Q   probable    future    of    his    race    in 

America?  Do  they  necessarily  indicate  the  negro's  ex- 
tinction here?  Will  justice  come  too  late  to  save  him?  I 
do  not  think  so.  The  present  excessive  death-rate  might 
mean  the  creation  of  a  new  racial  variety  through  natural 
selection  and  the  survival  of  the  stronger.  If  one  alterna- 
tive is  extinction,  another  equally  good  is  the  emergence 
from  this  sifting  of  a  better  negro  than  the  world  ever  saw 
before.^  Why  is  the  Anglo-Saxon  stronger  than  other 
races?  What  is  the  secret  of  his  superiority?  It  is  that 
so  many  of  his  race  are  dead.  At  some  time  in  the  past, 
and  more  than  once,  he  had  a  highly  excessive  death-rate 
which  killed  off  weaklings  and  left  a  stock  stronger  than 
the  original  variety.  We  have  been  sifted  more  frequently 
and  more  sternly  than  any  other  people ;  consequently  we, 
the  remnant,  are  in  some  respects  better  than  they.  We 
could  still  be  improved  by  the  same  grim  method.  Our  race 
would  be  stronger  if  more  of  us  were  dead,  but  the  con- 
science of  Christendom  revolts  from  such  a  policy  of  im- 
provement. By  sanitation,  medicine,  philanthropy,  the 
moral  sense  insists  upon  keeping  alive  the  otherwise  unfit. 
Enough  suffering  remains  to  wring  our  hearts  but  not 
enough  to  better  our  stock.  From  the  negro  alone,  hith- 
erto, have  been  withlield  the  remedial  resources  of  American 
civilization ;  consequently  his  is  probably  the  only  Ameri- 
can group  which  is  getting  any  constitutional  good  out  of 
his  tragedy.  Its  death-rate  is  actually  so  excessive  that 
it  may  well  be  physically  selective.  Perhaps  we  should 
'  Giddings,  Independent,  February  14,  1906,  p.  383. 

[182  1 


A    BACKGROUND    FOR    BLACK 


read  in  its  grim  statistics  a  story  of  the  evolution  of  a 
more  resistant  type  which,  instead  of  being  exterminated, 
will  help  to  people  the  nation  with  a  posterity  adapted 
both  to  our  climate  and  to  our  civilization.  This  is  at 
least  as  safe  a  prophecy  as  that  of  extinction.  Add  to 
this,  too,  that,  if  the  white  population  continues  to  pros- 
per more  rapidly  than  the  negro,  it  will  continue  to  be 
more  subject  to  the  decreased  birth-rate  which  always  fol- 
lows upon  an  advancing  standard  of  living.  With  the  in- 
creasing wealth  of  their  section.  Southern  whites,  who 
hitherto  have  had  large  families,  will  commit  race  suicide, 
—  and  faster  than  the  negro  does.  Thus  the  more  re- 
sistant negro  of  the  future  may  for  a  time  multiply  faster 
than  the  white  and  his  race  continue  to  bear  as  large  a 
proportion  in  the  general  population  as  at  present.  At 
any  rate,  it  is  the  part  of  common  justice  to  eliminate  all 
preventable  social  factors  of  the  negro's  physical  inferi- 
ority, and  with  faith  in  both  races  to  allow  Providence  to 
provide  for  the  future. 

2.    The  Negro's  Precarious  Economic  Position 

A  fair  and  conservative  statement  of  the  facts  as  statis- 
tically indicated  is  given  by  Prof.  W.  F.  Willcox: 

In  the  industrial  competition  thus  begun,  the  negro 
seems  during  the  last  decade  to  have  slightly  lost 
ground  in  most  of  those  higher  occupations  in  which 
the  services  are  rendered  largely  to  whites.  He  has 
gained  in  the  two  so-called  learned  professions  of 
teachers  and  clergymen.  He  has  gained  in  the  two 
skilled  occupations  of  miner  or  quarryman  and  iron 
or  steel-worker.  He  has  gained  in  the  occupations, 
somewhat  ill-defined  so  far  as  the  degree  of  skill  re- 
quired is  indicated,  as  sawing-mill  or  planing-mill  em- 

fissl 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

ployee,  and  nurse  or  midwife.  He  has  gained  in  the 
class  of  servants  and  waiters.  On  the  other  side  of 
the  balance  sheet  he  has  lost  ground  in  the  South  as 
a  whole  in  the  following  skilled  occupations :  car- 
penter, barber,  tobacco  and  cigar  factory  operative, 
fisherman,  engineer  or  fireman  (not  locomotive),  and 
probably  blacksmith.  He  has  lost  ground  also  in  the 
following  industries,  in  which  the  degree  of  skill  im- 
plied seems  somewhat  uncertain:  laundry  work,  hack- 
man  or  teamster,  steam  railroad  employee,  house- 
keeper or  steward.  The  balance  seems  not  favorable. 
It  suggests  that  in  the  competition  with  white  labor 
to  which  the  negro  is  being  subjected  he  has  not  quite 
held  his  own.^ 

The  racial  interpretation  of  these  facts  is  that  the  in- 
born indolence  of  Africa  sleeps  in  the  negro's  blood. 
Racial  Laziness  is  a  virtue  in  the  tropics.     Nature 

Interpretation  there  selects  the  languid  to  survive.  The 
negro  simply  lacks  the  inborn  impulse  to  work  with  the 
degree  of  energy  which  is  normal  for  the  white  man.  A 
table  of  economic  vices  and  virtues  may  thus  be  drawn  out 
as  racial  contrasts.  The  white  worker  is  energetic ;  the 
negro  lazy.  The  white  worker  is  self-reliant;  the  negro 
servile.  The  white  worker  is  reliable ;  the  negro  is  child- 
ishly unaccountable.  The  white  worker  is  thrifty ;  the 
negro  utterly  lacks  a  "  compelling  vision  of  the  future." 
This  contrast,  it  should  be  noted,  incidentally  takes  grave 
liberties  with  the  facts  about  Africa.  That  great  conti- 
nent does  not  all  lie  in  the  banana  belt.  It  has  temperate 
table-lands  which  conduce  to  energy  and  it  has  millions  by 
no  means  living  without  working.^     Prof.  N.   S.   Shaler, 

*  American  Race  Problems,  pp.  493-494. 

^  See  Dowd,  Negro  Races,  ch.  xxxix,  for  a  description  and  comparison  of 
the  different  African  "zones." 

f  184  1 


A    BACKGROUND    FOE    BLACK 


Kentuckian  and  Harvard  professor,  and  Judge  Emory 
Speer,  of  Georgia,  justify  their  relatively  high  estimate  of 
certain  American  negro  types  on  the  very  ground  of 
heredity.  Some,  they  think,  are  descended  from  superior 
African  groups  whose  native  environment  made  for  vigor 
and  foresight.  It  seems  hkely,  however,  that  the  majority 
of  the  forbears  of  the  American  negro  came  from  less 
favorable  parts  of  Africa.  Following  the  clue  of  inborn 
laziness  into  the  future,  many  reputable  Southern  the- 
orists, and  with  them  some  notable  Northern  authorities, 
predict  his  complete  economic  displacement.  President 
Alderman,  following  Hoffman,  argues  that  the  negro  can- 
not long  hold  the  land  which  he  already  owns,  while  Alfred 
Holt  Stone  is  convinced  that  immigrant  labor,  whenever  it 
comes,  will  displace  him  as  tenant  farmer  in  the  South. 
The  prejudice  and  increasing  competition  of  organized 
white  labor  is  said  to  narrow  and  threaten  his  hold  on  in- 
dustry even  where  he  has  hitherto  had  an  undisputed  labor 
monopoly.  Thus,  on  all  sides,  his  outlook  is  dark. 
"  Whosoever  hath  not,  from  him  shall  be  taken  away  even 
that  he  hath." 

We  will  fall  back  upon  the  racial  explanation  if  we  must ; 
but  remembering  Professor  Ross'  warning,  we  would  not 
Social  be  so  cowardly   or  indolent  as  to  resort  to 

Alternatives  it  before  we  have  exhausted  the  meaning  of 
more  obvious  causes.  We  must  first  wring  from  every 
social  explanation  its  last  drop  of  significance. 

Since  this  man  is  dying  twice  as  fast  as  we,  it  would  be 
natural  that  the  physical  weakness  which  is  killing  him 
should  make  him  drag  before  he  dies.  He  who  is  about  to 
die  with  a  double  death-rate  will  not  be  able  to  work  with 
normal  energy.     So  much  is  self-evident. 

And  whether  the  negro  is  a  good  worker  or  not,  he  is  a 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTEUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

worker  in  larger  proportion  than  any  other  race.  The 
ratio  of  breadwinners  among  Southern  negroes  exceeds 
Effects  of  Child  ^^^^  among  Southern  whites  by  15  per  cent 
and  Mother  and  chiefly  in  three  classes,  women,  children, 
and  old  men,  the  excessive  labor  of  women 
accounting  for  three-quarters  of  the  difference.  In  pro- 
portion twice  as  many  colored  boys  are  breadwinners  as 
white,  five  times  as  many  colored  girls  as  white,  four 
times  as  many  colored  women  as  white,  eight  times  as  many 
colored  married  women  as  white,  while  25  per  cent  more 
old  negro  men  drag  out  their  working  lives  after  the  years 
at  which  white  men  retire. 

Now  when  such  things  are  true,  the  outcome  is  obvious. 
The  child  laborer  is  one  who  robs  his  own  manhood  of 
energy.  He  uses  up  vitality  now  which  should  have  been 
reserved  to  make  his  maturity  strong.  All  of  the  sluggish- 
ness and  much  of  the  mental  deficiency  of  the  negro  is  due 
to  the  too  heavy  burdens  put  upon  his  childhood.  What 
happens  when  mothers  work-f^  Their  children  are  robbed. 
Unborn  children  come  into  the  world  weakened  and  con- 
tinue undernourished.  Both  the  mother  who  must  be  the 
breadwinner,  and  also  feed  and  attend  her  child,  and  the 
child  who  is  born  of  that  working  mother,  will  drag  their 
ways  through  life.  The  labor  of  white  mothers  and  chil- 
dren is  recognized  as  a  social  evil  which  stirs  the  conscience 
and  arouses  sympathy.  Its  result  are  perfectly  well  under- 
stood. The  labor  of  negro  women  and  children  is  taken 
for  granted  as  part  of  their  divinely  ordained  law  and  the 
results  charged  to  racial  deficiency.  The  old  man  who 
drags  his  decaying  body  through  the  fomns  of  work  is  an 
additional  example  of  the  negro's  alleged  indolence. 

But  the  physical  aspect  of  the  case  is  not  the  chief  one. 
The   social   opportunity    allowed  the   negro   has   not    fur- 


A    BACKGROUND    FOR    BLACK 


nished  him  with  adequate  motive  to  labor.  Why  do  we, 
who  possess  normal  energies,  work?  Because  prizes  are 
Lack  of  Social  set  before  us.  Experience,  sociology,  and 
Incentive  common  sense  unite  to  declare  that  the  real 

incentives  to  make  men  effective  laborers  are  incentives  of 
possible  promotion,  of  social  gain.  A  ladder  is  set  before 
us  and  we  are  told  that  if  we  cHmb  there  is  something 
for  us  at  the  top.  The  appeal  may  be  to  a  sordid  earthly 
ambition  or  to  a  high  and  noble  ambition ;  it  must  be  to 
some  sort  of  ambition.  Only  for  a  prize  set  before  him 
will  a  man  contend  with  all  his  might. 

Why  is  it  that  the  peasantry  of  Europe  do  not  work 
as  those  very  peasants  do  when  they  come  to  America.'' 
Here  they  receive  miraculous  new  energy.     They  keep  step 
with  our  best  progress ;    their  children  rise  to  the  highest 
places  —  to   governorships,    and   seats   in   Congress,    and 
the  Cabinet  —  and  why.?     Simply  because  the  social  sys- 
tem in  the  Old  World  gave  the  peasant  no  opportunity, 
while  the  New  World  fills  him  with  inspiration.     Now  the 
lot  of  the  negro  mi  the  South, ^as  of  the  peasant  in  Europe,  0n^iA^ 
is  one  of  repression  through  social  prejudice.    He  is  pushed  ^4^«^$fc. 
on  the  far  side  of  a  color-line,  within  which  there  is  no  ^'^   <^ 
adequate  incentive.     Man  does  not  live  nor  strive  for  bread 
alone.      His    full   manhood    will   hear    nothing   less    than 
some  high  calling. 

To  make  the  case  specific,  the  most  damaging  com- 
plaints about  the  negro  as  a  laborer  relate  to  the  plan- 
The  Case  of  tation  hand  of  the  lower  South.  Why  is  he 
the  Plantation  worse  than  other  negroes.''  Because  he  lives 
Negro  under  a  worse  economic  system,  a  system  of 

forced  labor,  while  in  the  cities,  the  factories,  and  in  the 
agricultural  uplands  the  negro  is  under  the  ordinary  wage 
system. 

[1871 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

The  South  declares  that  the  negro  will  not  work  without 
compulsion  and  has  shaped  its  policy  accordingly.  Iso- 
lated cases  of  men  kept  at  forced  labor  by  the  blood- 
hound and  the  shotgun  are  of  small  moment  compared 
with  laws  denying  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  rela- 
tion of  free  labor  to  its  employers.  The  proof  of  peonage 
is  not  a  matter  of  convicting  this  or  that  planter,  but  of 
analyzing  the  economic  legislation  of  the  South.  The  mass 
of  negroes  there  live  under  a  system  expressly  devised 
and  intended  to  hold  them  to  the  soil.  Their  debts  are 
legally  collectable  through  forced  labor,  as  no  poor  man's 
debts  are  collected  anywhere  else  under  civilization.  Run- 
ning away  from  one's  job,  which  in  the  North  would  be 
called  "  striking,"  a  privilege  guarded  as  the  laborer's 
most  essential  prerogative,  is  in  the  South  made  a  crime 
punishable  by  compulsory  service.^ 

A  special  report  on  the  Federal  peonage  investigations. 
Peonage  made  in  December,  1907,  by  Assistant  Attor- 

lavestigations  ney-General  Russell,  characterizes  the  legal 
basis  of  these  oppressions  as  follows: 

These  state  laws  take  various  forms  and  are  used 
in  various  ways  to  uphold  peonage  and  other  kinds 
of  involuntary  servitude.  Some  of  them  are  vagrancy 
laws,  some  contract  labor  or  employment  laws,  some 
fraudulent  pretense  or  false  promise  laws,  and  there 
are  divers  others.  Some  few  of  them  in  question,  such 
as  absconding  debtor  laws,  labor  enticing,  and  board- 
bill  laws,  were  not  originally  intended  to  enslave  work- 
men, but  in  view  of  the  uses  to  which  they  are  put 
they  need  amendment  in  order  that  they  cannot  be 
so  abused. 

These  laws  are  used  to  threaten  workmen,  who, 
'  See  Commons,  Races  and  Immigrants  in  America,  pp.  135-136. 


A    BACKGROUND    FOR    BLACK 


having  been  defrauded  into  going  to  an  employer  by 
false  reports  as  to  the  conditions  of  employment  and 
the  surroundings,  naturally  become  dissatisfied.  They 
are  used  before  juries  and  the  local  public  to  hold 
peons  up  as  lawbreakers  and  dishonest  persons  seek- 
ing to  avoid  their  "just  obligations,"  and  to  con- 
vince patriotic  juries  that  the  persons  accused  of 
peonage  should  not  be  convicted  for  enforcing,  still 
less  for  threatening  to  enforce,  the  laws  of  their 
state. 

Whether  constitutional  or  unconstitutional,  they 
should  all  be  wiped  out  or  amended  so  as  to  be  harm- 
less for  the  purpose  of  enslaving  workmen. 

In  view  of  this  report  a  Florida  representative  shrieked 
in  Congress: 

My  God,  what  an  affliction !  Charles  W,  Russell,  a 
Southern  man  and  a  Democrat.  "  It  is  a  dirty  bird 
which  befouls  its  own  nest." 

Perhaps  the  Supreme  Court  of  South  Carolina  is  also  an 
"  affliction."  It  recently  pronounced  unconstitutional  the 
labor  contract  laws  of  its  state,  declaring  that  the  laborer 
cannot  legally  be  punished  for  mere  evasion  of  debt,  but 
only  if  it  can  be  proved  that  he  entered  into  debt  with 
"  intent  to  defraud,"  A  considerable  part  of  the  legis- 
lative session  of  1908  was  given  to  devising  a  new  bill 
which  should  be  "  proof  against  Federal  laws  "  and  also 
"  meet  the  demands  of  the  farmers,  who  were  considerably 
upset  by  the  recent  decision  of  Judge  Brawley  of  said 
Supreme  Court,"  ^  To  this  sectional  attempt  to  secure 
his  labor  by  compulsion  rather  than  by  incentive,  the 
>  Columbia  State,  February  4,  1908. 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

laborer  has  responded  exactly  as  he  should,  by  poor  and 
grudging  service.  Hence  the  economic  condemnation  of 
the  plantation  negro. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  one  should  actually  take  a  poll 
to-day  of  the  industrial  employers  of  the  South,  they 
Industrial  Em-  ^'o^ld  vote  in  favor  of  the  negro  as  the  best 
ployers  favor  laborer  that  they  have,  or  think  they  could 
the  Negro  gg^^     'pjjg  negro  on  the  farm  is  very  widely 

condemned;  in  the  industries  very  largely  approved,  as 
every  investigation  by  Southerners  has  borne  witness. 
Comprehensive  inquiries  were  made  in  1899,  1900,  and 
1901  by  a  leading  industrial  journal,  The  Chattanooga 
Tradesman,  the  results  of  which  (as  even  Hoffman  grudg- 
ingly admits  ^ )  were  "  on  the  whole  favorable  to  the  negro 
as  an  industrial  worker."  He  adds :  "  The  significance 
of  it  is  that  so  many  should  favor  the  negro  as  an  indus- 
trial worker  in  view  of  the  fault  that  is  found  with  him 
as  an  agricultural  laborer."  -  But  the  employer  simply 
declares  the  facts  as  he  knows  them.  Mr.  O.  J.  Hill,  of 
the  Barrel  Trust,  tells  me  that  their  single  plant,  oper- 
ated exclusively  by  negro  labor,  runs  more  days  in  the 
year  than  any  plant  operated  by  white  employees.  I  at- 
tended in  Nashville  the  great  Immigration  Conference, 
along  with  six  or  seven  Southern  governors  and  repre- 
sentatives from  every  state  and  industry  of  that  section. 
The  burden  of  proof  in  that  conference  was  upon  the 
partisans  of  white,  and  especially  of  Italian  immigrant 
labor  as  against  negro  labor ;  and  the  South  was  not  con- 
vinced. A  mass  of  testimony  and  the  great  preponder- 
ance of  opinion  was  that  the  negro  is  the  very  best  laborer 
available  for  the  South  to-day.     In  fact,  I  never  before 

•  "Race  Traits  and  Tendencies  of  the  American  Negro,"  p.  278. 
«  Ibid.,  p.  273. 

-_ 


A    BACKGROUND    FOR    BLACK 


found  the  race  in  danger  of  the  woe  which  impends  "  when 
all  men  speak  well  of  you." 

Mr.  A.  H.  Stone,  the  great  advocate  of  the  Italian  as 
a  substitute  for  the  negro  in  agriculture,  confesses  that 
The  Reason  he  does  not  expect  "  any  sudden  revolution 
Why  in  Southern  agricultural  and  industrial  con- 

ditions. .  .  .  Thousands,  I  might  say  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands, of  Southern  white  men  prefer  the  negro  under  any 
and  all  circumstances  to  any  class  of  white  labor."  ''■  But 
this  attitude  Mr.  Stone  thinks  is  mere  inertia.  He  him- 
self has  had  very  poor  luck  with  negro  labor  on  a  Mis- 
sissippi plantation.  It  does  not  occur  to  him  that  the  con- 
flicting conclusions  of  agricultural  and  industrial  employers 
may  be  due  to  the  fact  that  negroes  respond  differently  to 
a  system  of  compulsion  and  a  system  of  incentive.  Yet 
it  seems  perfectly  clear  that  wherever  the  black  man  has 
escaped  from  the  old,  oppressive,  feudalistic  system  of 
forced  labor  and  come  under  the  plain  and  none  too  perfect 
wage-system,  the  result  has  been  a  quality  of  laborer  who 
on  the  testimony  of  his  employers  is  very  satisfactory. 

Yet  even  in  the  industries  much  is  lacking  of  normal 
Incomplete  incentive   to   the  negro.      He   frequently   re- 

Incentive  in  receives  unequal  wage  for  equal  work.  Thus 
Industry  Prof.  John  R.  Commons  writes : 

I  have  made  comparisons  of  the  pay-rolls  of  two 
,gas  works  in  Southern  cities  —  one  employing  negro 
stokers  at  eleven  cents  an  hour  and  the  other  whites 
at  twenty-two  cents  an  hour,  and  both  working  twelve 
hours  a  day  seven  days  a  week.  The  negroes  put  in 
as  many  hours  between  pay-days  as  did  the  whites, 
and  if  they  "  laid  off  "  after  pay-day,  it  is  no  more 
than  any  class  of  white  workmen  would  do  after  two 
'  American  Race  Problems,  p.  175. 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

weeks  of  such  exhausting  work.  The  negro  in  the 
Southern  cities  can  scarcely  hope  to  rise  above  twelve 
cents  an  hour,  and  white  mechanics  have  a  way  of 
working  with  negro  helpers  at  ten  cents  an  hour  in 
order  to  lift  their  own  wages  to  twenty  cents  an  hour. 
White  wage-earners  and  white  employers  in  the  South 
speak  of  the  negro's  efforts  to  get  higher  wages  in 
the  same  words  and  tones  as  employers  in  the  North 
speak  of  white  wage-earners  who  have  organized 
unions  and  demanded  more  pay.  A  foreman  con- 
demned his  "  niggers  "  for  instability  when  they  were 
leaving  him  at  ten  cents  an  hour  for  a  railroad  job 
at  twelve  and  one-half  cents  an  hour.  Praising  the 
Italians  in  comparison  with  the  negro,  he  could  not 
think  of  paying  seventeen  and  one-half  cents  an  hour 
for  pick  and  shovel  work,  which  Italians  were  said  to 
be  getting  in  another  section  of  the  state.  The  right 
to  quit  work  is  the  right  to  get  higher  wages.  If  the 
higher  wages  are  paid  and  proper  treatment  accorded, 
a  process  of  natural  selection  ensues.  The  industri- 
ous and  steady  workmen  of  all  races  retain  the  jobs. 
The  gas  company  referred  to  above,  by  a  system  of 
graded  pay  advancing  with  years  of  service,  had 
sorted  out  a  more  steady  and  reliable  force  of  negroes 
than  they  could  have  secured  of  whites  at  the  rate  of 
wages  paid.  The  test  is  indeed  a  severe  one  where  a 
race  has  always  been  looked  upon  as  servile.  With 
high  wages  regarded  as  "  white  man's  wages,"  the 
process  of  individual  selection  does  not  work  out,  and 
the  dominant  race  excuses  its  resort  to  whipping, 
beating,  and  peonage  on  the  ground  of  the  laziness 
which  its  methods  of  remuneration  have  not  learned 
to  counterbalance.  Even  the  industrious  Italians 
treated  in  this  way  would  not  be  industrious  —  they 
would  leave  for  other  states.^ 

'  Races  and  Immigrants  in  America,  pp.  139-140. 

[192  1 


A    BACKGROUND    FOR    BLACK 


Manifestly,  then,  there  is  a  good  deal  to  be  subtracted' 
from  the  negro's  reputation  as  a  poor  worker  before  it 
can  justly  be  charged  to  racial  tendencies. 

What  is  true  of  the  charge  of  laziness  is  true  of  every 
other  charge  of  economic  deficiency.  The  negro  does  not 
The  Negro  tend  by  racial  instinct  to  enter  servile  call- 
not  Servile  ings.  Numerically  speaking,  the  represen- 
tative of  the  race  in  America  is  not  a  menial  but  a  farmer. 
Its  proved  losses  in  some  of  the  skilled  trades  and  alleged 
gravitation  to  the  lower  forms  of  service  is  directly  trace- 
able to  a  peculiar  economic  situation.  On  the  one  hand, 
the  old  independent,  all-round  artisan,  white  or  black,  is 
gradually  disappearing.  His  work  is  taken  over  by  the 
factory  and  done  by  machinery  under  a  minute  special- 
ization of  processes.  White  as  well  as  negro  carpenters 
have  decreased  during  the  last  decade.  The  white  arti- 
san's son,  however,  follows  his  father's  job  into  the  fac- 
tory and  does  part  of  the  old  work  there  under  another 
name.  But  the  factory  is  the  stronghold  of  organized 
labor,  and  when  a  negro  makes  the  same  attempt  he  is 
repulsed  by  the  color-line  in  the  union.  This  does  not 
prove  that  with  a  fair  field,  as  a  man  and  a  producer,  he 
also  might  not  have  achieved  his  economic  transformation. 
If  he  now  falls  back  on  the  servile  callings,  it  is  because 
he  is  pushed  down  by  man,  not  pulled  down  by  his  own 
nature. 

Then,  on  the  other  hand,  with  the  remarkable  growth 
of  American  wealth  and  luxury,  there  has  been  a  vast  in- 
Competition  of  urease  in  the  demand  for  personal  service, 
the  Low-grade  It  is  no  discredit  to  the  negro  that  he  enters 
Immigrant  these  open  doors  when  others  are  shut  to  him. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  is  not  entering  them  so  fast  as 
foreign  whites  are.     They  are  actually  ousting  him  from 

13  [193] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

janitor's,  bootblack's,  and  pedler's  work.^  Another  evi- 
dence, then,  of  the  negro's  economic  incapacity?  Well, 
when  immigrants  come  over  to  compete  with  our  white 
labor,  the  cry  goes  up  that  the  sacred  American  standard 
of  living  is  attacked.  It  is  not  considered  an  economic 
virtue  to  be  able  to  compete  with  men  on  a  lower  scale  of 
subsistence.  The  displacement  of  successive  races  in  the 
New  England  mills  is  regarded  as  a  fall  upward.  But 
when  a  Mississippi  planter,  studying  the  Italian  in  his 
own  land  as  a  possible  substitute  for  the  negro  on  the 
Southern  farm,  reports,  "  Their  diet  was  simple  and  in- 
expensive —  a  Southern  plantation  negro  would  scorn  to 
accept  a  similar  ration,"  ^  the  negro  is  condemned  in  the 
next  breath  as  lacking  economic  strength  because  they 
drive  him  from  his  job.  So  would  they  drive  the  white 
American  were  he  not  bulwarked  by  organization  and 
public  sentiment.  Denied  these  defenses,  the  skilled  negro 
has  been  underlived,  precisely  because  he  had  the  prime 
economic  virtue,  a  relatively  high  standard  of  subsistence. 
In  his  turning  this  way  and  that  to  escape  his  economic 
handicaps  and  to  find  or  make  a  chance,  the  negro  has 
Gains  in  exhibited  a  mobility  and  resourcefulness  which 

Mobility  completely   overthrow  the   charge   of   servil- 

ity. He  is  called  a  "  slave  to  local  attachments  " ;  when 
he  disproves  it  by  coming  to  the  city  in  increasing  num- 
bers and  by  scattering  over  the  continent  in  search  of 
work,  he  is  blamed  for  instability  and  a  childish  taking 
of  risks.  The  fact  is  that  he  has  developed  what  all 
theorists  hold  to  be  another  of  the  chief  economic  virtues, 
namely,  a  wide  industrial  outlook  and  a  quick  command 

*  Stone,  American  Race  Problems,  p.  157. 

^  Manufacturer's  Record,  November  9,  1905,  quoted  by  Stone  in  Ameri- 
can Race  Problems,  p.  194. 

[194] 


A    BACKGROUND    FOR    BLACK 


of  the  entire  country  as  his  labor  market.  This  new 
migrant  habit  exposes  him  to  numerous  moral  dangers, 
but  it  expresses  practical  good  sense. 

In  addition  to  this  new  economic  mobility  the  great 
resources  of  group  economy,  previously  discussed,  have 
Growing  been    most    skilfully    used   by    the   negro    as 

Racial  Pride  an  escape  from  ruinous  competition  of  low- 
standard  whites.  On  his  own  side  of  the  color-line  he  has 
proved  himself  capable  of  well-nigh  limitless  expansion. 
His  dominant  mood  is  anything  but  servile.  Latter-day 
efforts  at  self-development  even  tend  to  be  too  impatient 
of  friendly  guidance.  Already  the  outstanding  charac- 
teristics of  the  American  negro  are  not  dependence  but 
growing  racial  pride  and  purpose. 

We  have  called  mobility  a  virtue;  yet  it  is  just  the 
younger  generation  of  American  city-going  negroes  which 
The  Psvchol-  ^^  credited  with  the  most  vexatious  of  eco- 
ogy  of  Ineffi-  nomic  vices,  unreliability,  and  inefficiency, 
ciency  'p}^g  experience  of  the  North  with  this  class 

tends  to  make  it  sympathetic  with  the  South's  injured, 
discouraging  wail,  "  As  a  worker  the  negro  is  deteriorat- 
ing." It  is  an  easy,  but  also  a  cheap,  explanation  to 
ascribe  this  alleged  tendency  to  malign  African  charac- 
teristics, the  essential  unaccountability  of  a  childish  race, 
temperamentally  unfit  for  freedom.  The  South  is  the  less 
to  blame  for  such  a  view  because  it  is  economically  pro- 
vincial; it  lacks  experience  with  any  other  laboring  class 
than  the  negro.  The  North,  however,  has  only  to  com- 
pare him  with  other  immigrants  to  discover  that  he  ex- 
hibits identical  traits  with  theirs.  Every  group  under- 
going \'iolent  industrial  transition  and  newly  entered  upon 
enlarged  opportunity  experiences  transitional  maladies. 
They    belong    to    the    immigrant    as    an    economic    type 

fl95l 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

whether  he  be  white  or  black.  The  psychology  of  the 
unsatisfactory  worker  has  been  keenly  analyzed  by  Prof. 
Simon  N.  Patten : 

It  is  composed  of  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
workers  who  have  reached  with  a  bound  the  line  of 
full  nutrition,  the  way  having  been  cleared  for  them 
by  the  insatiable  demand  for  men  to  handle  the  in- 
rushing  wealth  of  America's  resources.  Placed  in  a 
young,  industrial  civilization,  their  advance  has  been 
so  swift  and  urgent  that  social  restraints  have  fallen 
from  them ;  they  have  broken  old  habits  of  fealty  to 
bonds ;  they  have  forgotten  the  sympathies  that  made 
good  service  to  employers  a  virtue  to  be  sought,  and 
they  have  not  attained  new  industrial  traits  that  make 
work  enjoyable.  They  have  been  changed  from  drilled 
and  dutiful  beings  to  raw  recruits  of  an  economic 
freedom,  which  to  them  is  complete  because  in  the  ex- 
ercise of  it  they  for  the  first  time  gratify  their  wants 
and  keep  pace  with  their  material  desires.  Their  em- 
ployers and  other  observers  characterize  them  as  hav- 
ing an  unreliable,  undisciplined  independence  in  their 
industrial  relationships  —  these  half-skilled  mechan- 
ics, grocers,  clerks,  butchers,  barbers,  household  cooks, 
domestics,  and  the  rest  of  the  army  of  the  wasteful, 
ineffective,  and  indifferent.  It  is  said  of  them  that 
they  render  unsatisfactory  service  and  shirk  tlie  equiv- 
alent of  their  wages  because  they  can  find  new  places 
with  less  effort  than  they  can  do  their  work  in  the 
old  ones.  They  are  generally  inefficient,  yet  always 
in  demand,  unskilful,  yet  reasonably  sure  of  employ- 
ment; and  thus  fortified  they  have  become  the  peri- 
patetics of  industry.  Their  obvious  value  to  society 
gives  them  an  independence  which  is  not  justified  by 
their  power  of  initiative,  and  a  mobility  which  is 
without    thoughtful    far-seeing    pui*pose ;    they    have 

[YdT] 


A    BACKGROUND    FOR    BLACK 


fallen  into  a  period  of  arrest  because  they  are  satis- 
fied with  a  status  in  which  their  gratifications  are 
flush  with  their  wants.  They  are  for  the  moment 
without  motives  to  work  well;  in  the  first  place  they 
"  owe  nothing,"  they  say,  to  the  chance  stranger  who 
bespeaks  them ;  and  in  the  second,  their  conscious  and 
simple  needs  are  so  amply  met  that  reasons  for  work- 
ing well  are  lacking. 

Of  this  class  was  a  woman  who  took  a  position  as 
highly  paid  cook  in  a  family  of  two.  When  she  proved 
to  be  frankly  untrained  and  incapable,  and  was  taxed 
with  false  pretenses,  she  said  with  hurt  dignity,  "  You 
got  a  pair  of  hands  to  wash  some  of  your  dishes  for 
you,  and  I  have  seen  ladies  waiting  a  long  time  for 
that."  1 

The  above-mentioned  cook  may  well  have  been  a  negro ; 
but  Professor  Patten  is  not  thinking  about  negroes.  He 
points  out  everywhere  a  class  of  economically  disappoint- 
ing laborers  who  have  broken  away  from  old  standards 
and  not  yet  become  adjusted  to  a  new  freedom.  This  is 
a  world  problem,  and  the  South  would  find  such  alleged 
*'  nigger  "  traits  in  any  laboring  race  which  it  might  im- 
port in  any  numbers. 

The  presence  of  hordes  of  negro  vagrants  in  Its  streets 
is  one  of  the  South's  chief  complaints.  Upon  retiring 
Economic  from  twelve  years'  service  on  the  police  bench 

Origin  of  the  of  Savannah,  Judge  Norwood  made  one  of 
Negro  Vagrant  f}^Q  bitterest  of  recent  attacks  on  the  colored 
race.  He  charged  that  Savannah  had  from  five  to  eight 
thousand  of  such  vagrants,  whose  shiftlessness  and  im- 
morality he  attempted  to  explain  by  a  detailed  statement 
of  the  condition  of  the  negro  in  Africa.  Apparently  he 
*  The  New  Basis  of  Civilization,  pp.  80-81. 

[wT]  ■ 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

knew  more  about  Africa  than  about  Savannah.  Here  is 
the  third  greatest  seaport  in  the  South  and  the  world's 
greatest  center  for  the  shipment  of  naval  stores.  To-day 
it  requires  thousands  of  unskilled  laborers  to  load  and  un- 
load the  cars  and  ships.  Should  one  or  two  hundred  be 
lacking  they  would  be  telegraphed  for  and  brought  down 
from  Atlanta  before  dinner.  To-morrow  thej^  will  need  but 
one  half  as  many  —  for  such  are  the  irregularities  of 
industry  —  and  the  rest  must  stand  idle  in  the  market- 
place because  no  man  has  hired  them.  On  Sunday  they 
will  all  be  in  the  streets  and  alleys  —  the  parks  being 
closed  to  them  —  homeless,  irresponsible,  idle  men.  Com- 
pared with  London  dockers  and  Hong  Kong  coolies  they 
may  be  quite  amiable  citizens,  but  Savannah  does  not 
know  enough  to  compare  them  with  their  economic  type. 
It  ascribes  all  their  shortcomings  to  negro  blood.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  they  are  a  direct  creation  of  modern  in- 
dustrial conditions  which  require  an  irregular  supply  of 
unskilled  labor.  This  constitutes  always  and  everywhere 
a  difficult  and  dangerous  class. 

3.    The  Negro's  Excessive  Immorality 

The  facts  concerning  negro  crime  are  various  and  per- 
plexing. However,  the  more  general  statistics  are  clear 
enough.  His  prison  population  is  two  and  one-half  times 
his  proportion  to  the  general  population  of  the  nation. 

In  a  typical  Southern  city,  like  Savannah,  with  a  little 
larger  negro  population  than  white,  three  negroes  are 
arrested  to  one  white  man.  Vice  is  essentially  incapable  of 
statistical  measurement.  In  the  most  reputable  of  South- 
ern circles  one  hears  the  confident  charge  that  a  pure  negro 
woman  does  not  exist.     As  measured  by  statistics  of  ille- 


A    BACKGROUND    FOR    BLACK 


gitimacy,  the  race's  sad  preeminence  in  unchastity  is  un- 
deniable. Vice  and  crime  are  alike  excessive.  Yet  one 
must  not  immediately  give  them  racial  explanation.  Is 
it  that  the  negro  is  bestial.''  One  cannot  so  conclude  until 
he  has  wrung  from  every  other  explanation  its  least 
significance. 

Is  there  any  reason  why  a  man  who  dies  twice  as  fast 
as  normal  men  do  —  a  man  who  is  a  poor  worker  — 
Virtue  has  a  should  also  be  a  criminal,''  There  are  at 
Physical  Basis  least  some  reasons ;  one  is  that  virtue  has 
a  physical  basis.  He  who  is  weak  against  disease  is  apt 
to  be  weak  against  temptation. 

It  is  well  recognized  that  city  conditions  exact  a  moral 
penalty  of  the  poor  man,  who  is  forced  to  herd  with  the 
The  Compul-  bad  man.  Social  stratification  uniformly 
sory  Herding  segregates  the  unfortunate  and  the  evil 
Lite  wiih 'the  from  the  good.  Geographically  poverty  and 
Debased  crime  are  neighbors ;    physically  they  are  in 

immediate  contact,  and  their  victims  cannot  help  it.  In 
many  a  Southern  city  the  negro's  best  institutions  are 
crowded  into  the  same  areas  with  the  white's  worst;  the 
school  is  located  in  the  same  block  with  the  brothel. 

Suppose  one's  mother  locks  one  up  in  the  house  when 
she  goes  off  to  work  in  the  morning ;  or  suppose  she  leaves 
Crime  due  to  ^^^  ^°  S^^  ^^^  ^^^  breakfast  and  then  to  go 
Neglect  of  to    school,   if   he   pleases   and   if   there   is   a 

Childhood  school  (half  of  the  8000  negro  school  chil- 

dren of  Savannah  have  neither  seat,  book,  nor  teacher, 
and  cannot  go  to  school  if  they  would)  ;  or  suppose  one 
of  tender  years  takes  the  only  opportunity  of  breadwin- 
ning  open  to  a  negro  boy,  a  menial  position  in  a  hotel, 
store,  or  office,  where  he  sees  men  in  their  coarser,  away- 
from-home  moods ;    or  suppose  that  the  park  is  forbidden 

[1991 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

to  the  child  at  play  and  he  is  driven  into  the  alley ;  what 
result  should  be  expected?  This  is  the  average  lot  of  the 
negro  child's  life.  We  know  that  to  neglect  his  white 
brother  is  a  sure  means  of  making  a  criminal  of  him,  but 
of  the  negro  we  think,  as  did  the  Tennessee  "  mammy  " 
in  a  recent  book  by  a  Southern  author,  "  Hit  don't  hurt 
niggers  none  to  tote  things  too  heavy  for  'um."  So 
America  seems  to  think.  It  then  wonders  that  the  negro 
child  becomes  a  delinquent,  whom  our  medieval  law  mis- 
takenly classes  as  a  criminal.  The  explanation  is  clear; 
it  is  not  racial,  but  social. 

Suppose  the  lot  of  the  white  girl  were  that  of  the 
negro  girl.  In  the  first  place,  curiously,  the  race  has 
The  Lot  of  ^n  abnormal  proportion  of  women.  There 
the  Negro  Girl  is  an  especial  oversupply  of  them  in  the 
cities,  and  their  economic  opportunities  are  extremely 
narrow.  Domestic  service  is  almost  their  only  means  of 
breadwinning ;  consequently  economically,  as  well  as  so- 
cially, negro  women  are  cheap.  Social  custom  in  the 
South  is  that  a  house  servant  shall  not  sleep  under  the 
same  roof  with  her  mistress.  She  is  provided  for  in  ser- 
vants' quarters  in  the  backyard  —  often  over  a  stable. 
There  hve  men  and  women  servants  without  social  or 
moral  supervision.  It  is  their  parlor  as  well  as  their  bed- 
room. What  company  they  have  they  must  have  there. 
The  superintendent  of  schools  in  one  of  the  chief  Southern 
cities,  a  Northern  man,  has  told  me  about  the  tragical 
and  unsuccessful  struggle  made  by  himself  and  his  wife 
to  keep  their  own  premises  from  being  a  place  of  de- 
bauchery. Yet  does  any  one  suppose  that  the  conse- 
quences would  be  different  with  any  group  of  young  people 
under  like  circumstances,  especially  under  a  common  social 
sentiment  that  a  woman's  virtue  is  worthless .?    They  would 

[200] 


A    BACKGROUND    FOR    BLACK 


go  wrong  were  they  our  own  sons  and  daughters.  Yet 
the  negro  girl  is  a  breadwinner  five  times  as  frequently 
as  the  white  girl,  and  these  are  the  typical  circumstances 
under  which  she  must  make  her  struggle  both  for  self- 
support  and  for  character. 

The  instability  of  the  negro  family,  too,  its  excessive 
marital  infidelity  and  frequent  divorce,  are  due  to  specific 
The  Instability  social  causes.  A  considerable  proportion  of 
of  the  Negro  the  race  is,  in  economic  status,  below  the 
Family  a  jjj^g  q£  family  continuity,"  as  the  economist 

calls  it.  Why  do  better  class  families  persist.'*  Because 
of  the  superior  virtue  of  their  members.?  Only  partly. 
The  deeper  explanation  is  that  they  have  become  estab- 
lished in  a  domestic  scheme  in  which  the  prolongation  of 
infancy  compels  family  solidarity.  Children  do  not  be- 
come financially  independent  until  full  grown ;  the  wife 
and  daughters  have  no  preparation  for  breadwinning ; 
they  are  permanent  dependents.  The  component  parts 
of  such  a  family  must  stick  together  in  order  to  survive. 
Reduce  its  income  by  one-half  or  three-quarters  and  note 
what  happens.  The  children  are  forced  into  breadwin- 
ning at  a  tender  age,  and  income-bringing  employment 
becomes  the  permanent  and  expected  lot  of  mother  and 
daughters.  There  can  be  but  little  home  life.  Day  by 
day  each  member  goes  to  his  own  appointed  task ;  each 
as  an  independent  worker  is  self-sufficient.  The  group 
has  no  outward  compression  to  reenforce  its  inner  cohe- 
sion. It  is  economically  unstable.  Consequently  it  fre- 
quently falls  apart.  All  homes  on  this  level,  of  whatever 
race,  show  the  same  weakness.  The  negro  is  no  sinner 
above  all  the  Galileans. 

Savannah  complains  of  its  five  to  eight  thousand  negro 
"  vagrants,"  whom  we  Identified  above  as  merely  irregu- 


201] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

lar  workers,  drawn  together  by  the  industrial  demands  of 
a  great  seaport,  and  showing  all  the  marks  of  a  well- 
Creation  of  known  social  type.  Savannah  charges  them 
Criminals  by  to  the  negro  as  a  race.  What  her  industry 
Industry  creates,  her  law  in  turn  brands  as  criminal. 

To  be  an  irregular  worker  —  to  have  no  permanent  home 
or  j  ob  —  to  have  been  brought  down  this  morning  from 
Atlanta  in  response  to  the  call  of  a  captain  of  industry, 
—  to  do  necessary  labor  on  terms  not  of  your  own  choos- 
ing —  is  to  be  at  outs  with  the  law.  Chiefly  on  account 
of  this  class  the  arrests  of  negroes  in  Savannah  are  nearly 
three  times  as  frequent  as  those  of  whites,  but  two-thirds 
of  these  negro  arrests  are  either  for  vagrancy,  drunken- 
ness, or  disorderly  conduct.  All  these  go  down  in  the 
statistical  tables  of  the  census  against  the  race ;  but 
when  the  census  bulletin  turns  to  interpret  its  own  statis- 
tics, it  says  explicitly  that  such  minor  offenses  should  not 
be  called  crimes  at  all.  Two-thirds  of  the  excessive  negro 
criminality  of  Savannah  is  simply  criminality  by  definition. 
The  social  inconvenience  of  Savannah  on  account  of  her 
negroes  is  due  almost  wholly  to  arbitrary,  abnormal  city 
conditions,  such  as  crowding  and  the  denial  of  parks  to 
them,  to  the  demands  of  industry  for  irregular  work- 
men, and  to  a  misunderstanding  of  the  nature  of  crime. 
It  is  no  just  measurement  of  the  negro  as  a  social 
menace. 

Of  the  unequal  administration  of  criminal  law  between 
the  races,  which  all  competent  observers  note,  the  Southern 
Criminality  by  press  itself  sometimes  testifies  in  moments  of 
Administration  disgusted  candor.  Witness  the  following 
from  the  Nashville  American  of  March  12,  1908: 


202] 


A    BACKGROUND    FOR    BLACK 


NEGROES    AND    FEE    GRABBERS 

Is  the  repeated  arrest  of  negroes  congregated 
around  barrooms  and  other  resorts  by  county  offi- 
cers in  the  interest  of  morahty,  or  merely  a  well- 
defined  scheme  to  secure  fees?  It  strikes  us  many  of 
these  so-called  raids  are  without  warrant,  and  made 
for  no  other  purpose  than  to  line  the  pockets  of  the 
raiders.  Worthless,  idle  negroes  engaged  in  offenses 
against  the  state  should  be  arrested,  of  course,  but 
practically  few  arrests  are  made  in  the  interest  of 
law  and  order. 

The  fee  grabber,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  is  no  better 
than  the  negro  who  has  to  pay  the  fee.  One  is  as 
immoral  as  the  other. 

It  is  also  said  there  are  justices  of  the  peace  who 
have  more  interest  in  the  fees  they  may  secure  from 
the  arrested  than  in  promoting  law  and  morals. 

The  American  has  no  patience  with  lawbreakers, 
white  or  black,  nor  has  it  any  with  the  fee  grabbers. 
It  also  feels  that  many  negroes  are  arrested  where 
white  men  equally  guilty  are  never  bothered.  The 
fee  grabbers  should  treat  all  alike,  and  not  do  a  lot 
of  raiding  merely  for  the  money  there  is  in  it. 

As  pastor  in  a  border  city,  I  had  six  years  In  which  to 
study  the  relation  between  the  city  administration  and 
the  vicious  element  of  negroes.  The  police  studied  to  a 
nicety  how  much  money  a  negro  washerwoman  could  make, 
and  then  proceeded  to  arrest  her  husband,  brother,  father, 
son,  or  the  man  she  lived  with,  as  the  case  might  be,  just 
as  often  as  she  could  pay  their  fines.  Of  course  the  men 
were  drunken,  boisterous,  disorderly,  but  the  vicious  whites 
were  not  arrested  in  any  such  systematic  way,  and  the 
policy  pursued  with  the  vicious  negro  in  no  sense  had  as 

[  203  ] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

its  motive  the  protection  of  the  community.  Under  the 
fee  system  the  policeman  who  made  the  arrest,  the  pohce 
judge,  his  clerk,  the  jailer,  and  every  other  official  con- 
nected with  the  case,  got  a  "  rake-off."  It  was  legal 
grafting.  The  negro  washerwoman  washed  for  the  city 
officials ;  they  took  her  money  under  the  guise  of  enforce- 
ment of  the  law.  It  was  as  regular  as  wash-day,  as  legal 
as  the  statute-book,  and  as  damnable  as  any  highway 
robbery. 

William  Mc Arthur  has  been  for  many  years  the  janitor 
of  a  white  church  in  a  former  slave  state.  He  owns  a 
Th  N  w  '  farm  and  city  house ;  has  a  bank  account, 
Reaction  and  could  loan  money  more  easily  than  most 

against  Racial     of  the  church-members  he  serves.     His  repu- 
jus  ice  tation   for  character  is   as   good  as   any   of 

theirs.  When,  therefore,  a  disreputable  white  woman  at- 
tempted to  blackmail  him  by  threatening  to  charge  him 
with  assault  on  a  child,  he  naturally  went  to  the  church 
officers  for  advice.  They  believed  in  him  as  they  did  in 
each  other,  but  put  him  on  a  midnight  train  for  Califor- 
nia. To  his  Northern  pastor  it  was  incredible  that  a 
man  of  his  reputation  should  have  to  flee  like  a  thief.  The 
answer  was :  "  This  community  is  likely  to  lynch  first  and 
investigate  afterwards."  So  McArthur  went  —  he  could 
afford  to,  —  saying  with  pathetic  humor,  "  I  always 
wanted  to  travel  West  anyhow."  After  six  months  he 
felt  safe  to  come  back  and  take  up  his  work.  Not  long 
after  the  community  did  lynch  three  negroes  on  an  Easter 
morning.  The  grand  jury,  investigating  afterward,  found 
that  two  of  them  were  certainly  innocent.  Only  bayonets 
saved  the  negro  quarter  from  burning.  Then  McArthur 
came  to  his  pastor  to  know  where  under  the  stars  and 
stripes  a  self-respecting  and  respected  black  man   could 

[204] 


A    BACKGROUND    FOR    BLACK 


buy  his  ovm  vine  and  fig-tree,  and  go  and  sit  down  under 
them  in  the  ordinary  security  of  Christian  civilization. 

Now  McArthur's  character  is  fixed  so  that  adversity, 
while  it  seams  his  brow  and  weights  his  steps,  does  not 
make  a  social  rebel  of  him ;  but  his  boy,  when  I  last  saw 
him,  was  behind  the  bars. 

Now,  I  charge  that  America  did  not  give  McArthur's 
boy  a  square  deal.  Of  course  he  is  a  responsible  soul,  with 
heart,  will,  and  conscience  enough  to  make  some  impres- 
sion on  his  own  moral  destiny.  Let  him  bear  his  full  share 
of  the  blame ;  but  let  us  weigh  this :  he  had  felt  the  help- 
lessness of  the  property-owning  negro  before  the  black- 
mailer; had  seen  his  father  a  fugitive  at  midnight,  his 
life  hanging  upon  an  idle  word;  had  heard  just  men  con- 
fess their  inability  to  protect  one  in  whom  they  had  all 
confidence ;  had  vainly  longed  for  a  fatherland  which  could 
guarantee  somewhere  a  peaceful  death  to  one  who  had 
lived  in  honor;  had  smelled  the  burning  flesh  of  innocent 
men  of  his  own  race.  Besides  all  this  his  own  weakness 
had  been  trafficked  in  by  a  venal  police  power.  Such 
things  are  not  calculated  to  make  a  young  negro  into 
a  model  citizen.  You  tell  me  that  after  all  the  cord  and 
the  torch  are  rare,  that  statistically  one  is  more  Hkely  to 
die  from  falling  off  a  step-ladder  at  home  than  a  negro 
is  to  be  lynched.  I  reply  that  when  one  has  once  come 
under  the  shadow  of  such  a  tragedy  he  can  never  forget 
it.  It  stamps  his  imagination  for  all  time  and  sears  his 
soul  against  the  social  order  in  which  it  is  tolerated. 

How,  then,  shall  the  racial  element  in  the  negro's  re- 
corded criminality  be  measured.?     Manifestly  by  first  sub- 

„      ,T    u  •       tracting  that  which  is  not  racial ;    namely. 
How  Much  IS  ,  .  ,    .       ,       ,       T        .      1  •  -11       J  • 

Left  for  Racial    that  which  is  clearly  due  to  his  social  liandi- 

Explanation?      cap,    proved    physical     weakness,    neglected 


205 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

child  life,  and  the  like;  the  criminality  which  is  due  to 
his  moral  handicap,  including  the  physical  and  spiritual 
attacks  by  society  on  the  virtue  of  the  negro  woman ;  the 
criminality  which  industry  creates ;  the  criminality  which 
is  such  by  definition  only,  and  that  which  results  from  the 
unjust  administration  of  the  law  against  an  unpopular 
race.  When  this  is  done  there  are  not  many  facts  left  de- 
manding a  racial  explanation.  Such  an  explanation  is 
not  needed.  To  say  that  the  negro  is  after  all  bestial 
by  nature  is  gratuitous.  Other  factors  fully  account 
for  his  moral  deficiency  when  allowed  their  legitimate 
significance. 

In  the  destiny  of  the  American  negro  one  of  the  most 
crucial  elements  is  the  deep-seated  determination  of  the 
Destiny  of  the  American  people  to  give  a  racial  explana- 
American  tion  to  his  deficiencies  and  to  act  accordingly. 

Negro  Qyp  thought  about  our  black  fellow  Ameri- 

can is  one  of  the  cruelest  of  his  environing  facts.  It  can 
and  does  hold  the  balance  of  power  for  millions  of  lives 
and  characters.  The  outcome  hinges  largely  on  the  al- 
ternative of  national  justice  or  injustice. 

Already  the  hand  writes  plainly,  "  Thou  art  weighed  in 
the  balances,  and  art  found  wanting  " ;  but  of  wliom  pri- 
marily ?  Of  a  nation  which  through  blind  misunderstand- 
ing does  not  correct  the  socially  remediable  causes  of 
destruction  in  one  of  its  weaker  groups.  Then,  of  some 
part  of  the  negro  population.  No  one  can  anticipate  the 
salvation  of  the  whole  race.  It  is  all  too  patent  that 
part  of  it  is  failing  daily,  going  to  jail,  losing  its  job, 
dying ! 

But  this  indicates  no  race  tendency.  The  solidarity 
of  the  negro  race  in  social  destiny  is  neither  a  necessity 
nor  a  fact.     Already  a  minority  of  its  members  are  com- 

[206  1 


A    BACKGROUND    FOR    BLACK 


pletely  Americanized ;  they  have  arrived.  The  sifting  of 
the  race  will  proceed  still  further,  lifting  some  into  the 
emerged  and  conquering  group  and  discovering  to  others 
their  "  own  place  " ;  not  as  negroes,  but  as  individual, 
family,  or  group  failures.  Lying  statistics,  however, 
arithmetically  accurate,  confuse  the  nation's  mind  by  unit- 
ing in  tables  what  are  sundered  in  life,  namely,  the  as- 
cending and  descending  colored  groups.  At  the  worst 
they  do  not  apply  to  a  large  and  increasing  type  within 
the  race.  In  the  face  of  the  facts  it  is  sheer  presumption 
to  prophesy  the  extinction  of  the  American  negro.  Not 
only  is  the  chief  tendency  of  our  civilization  toward  the 
checking  of  the  struggle  for  survival  as  it  exists  on  a 
brute  plane  (if  it  were  not  so  the  majority  of  the  white 
race  were  also  doomed),  but  the  modem  world  ever  dis- 
covers ways  of  utilizing  a  larger  and  larger  proportion 
of  human  material.^  We  do  not  foDow  out  the  law  of  the 
destruction  of  the  unfit  to  its  bitter  end.  We  do  find  place 
for  more  and  more  people  of  very  ordinary  competency. 
Besides,  even  with  the  severest  sifting,  some  negroes  would 
undoubtedly  survive. 

What  then  shall  be  the  relative  proportion  of  the  two 
groups  —  the  successes  and  the  failures.''  If  some  are 
beyond  our  help,  others  are  above  our  harm;  but  for  the 
central  mass,  the  five-sixths  withheld  as  yet  from  their 
sterner  trial,  the  die  is  not  cast.  We  shall  hold  their 
hand  as  they  cast  it,  either  to  help  or  to  hinder.  At  the 
core  of  the  negro  problem  thus  lies  the  problem  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon ;  a  difficulty  not  of  the  blood  of  Africa,  but 
of  the  spirit  of  America.  "  Lord,  are  there  few  that  be 
saved.''  "     That  depends  upon  whether  those  who  are  able 

*  See  the  acute  application  of  this  argument  by  Murphy,  Basis  of 
Ascendency,  pp.  64  ff. 


[207] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

to  enter  in  by  the  strait  gate  shall  widen  it  a  little  as 
they  go  through  for  the  sake  of  their  brothers.  Let  the 
nation  do  justice  to  the  negro  in  those  matters  in  which 
his  deficiencies  are  remediable  and  then  turn  over  to  God 
and  posterity  their  share  of  the  business. 


208] 


yil.    TYPICAL   MISSIONARY 
ACTIVITIES 

I.    SPIRIT  AND  POLICY 

"  fTT^HE  first,"  said  the  late  Dr.  A.  D.  Mayo,  "  and 

I       still  the  most  notable  of  the  several  great  mis- 

"^      sionary  associations  for  the  training  of  the  negro 

race  in  the   Southern   states,  through  schools    of  every 

grade  and  the  ordinary  methods  of  mission  work  employed 

The  Work  of       by   the   Evangelical   Protestant    churches  in 

the  American      the  Northern  United  States,  was  the  Ameri- 

issionary  ^^^   Missionary   Association."      Its   mission- 

Association,  ... 

Typical  yet         ary  activities  are  typical  of  those  followed 

Unique  by  several  of  the  great  Christian  bodies  of 

the  North  —  Methodist  Episcopal,,  Presbyterian,  Protes- 
tant Episcopal,  Baptist,  and  Society  of  Friends ;  but  in 
spirit  and  policy  its  work  has  been  unique. 

Dr.  Mayo  continues :  "  Of  all  the  mission  educational  en- 
terprises of  the  Northern  Protestant  evangelical  churches, 
the  American  Missionary  Association  seems  to  have  borne 
in  mind  most  completely  the  idea  of  working  in  connection 
with  the  Southern  states  and  people  in  the  upbuilding  of 
the  common  school  for  the  colored  race.  It  has,  more 
than  others,  discouraged  the  mischievous  habit  of  engraft- 
ing the  old-time  parochial  school  on  the  churches  that 
have  been  developed  by  its  missionary  activity.  In  three 
of  these  states  —  Virginia,  Mississippi,  and  Georgia  —  at 
different  times  its  larger  schools  have  been  subsidized  by 
the  state  in  the  interest  of  their  normal  and  industrial 
departments.     It  has  not  shown  the  usual  desire  to  retain 

14  [ 209  ] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

its  original  authority  or  to  utilize  its  bounty  to  acquire 
the  perpetual  educational  control  of  its  schools.  Four  of 
the  most  important  schools  of  the  higher  order  with  wliich 
it  has  been  connected  and  which  have  been  liberally  aided 
by  it  are  now  entirely  separated  from  it  —  Howard,  Wash- 
ington, D.  C. ;  Hampton,  Virginia ;  Berea,  Kentucky  ; 
and  Atlanta  University,  Georgia.  The  explanation  of 
this  may  be  found  in  the  fact,  already  stated,  that  al- 
though the  American  Missionary  Association  first  united 
with  several  of  the  evangelical  Protestant  churches  in  its 
work  among  the  colored  people,  each  of  these  associations 
in  turn  has  preferred  to  separate  itself  from  others  and 
organize  on  a  more  decided  and  exclusive  denominational 
basis,  looking  to  the  church  it  represents  for  its  support 
and  guided  by  the  sectarian  policy  thereof."  ^  This  is 
to  say  that  the  Association  has  been  a  true  nationalizing 
agency.  Its  work  has  been  done,  not  as  an  adjunct  to 
a  movement  of  denominational  extension,  but  in  whole- 
hearted devotion  to  the  educational  and  civic  uplift  of  the 
needy  groups  who  constitute  a  national  problem. 

In  pohcy  it  shows,  on  the  other  hand,  a  sharp  contrast 
to  the  splendid  group  of  larger  schools  which  it  has 
Educational  graduated  into  independence.  It  has  always 
Diifusion  vs.  stood  for  diffusion  rather  than  for  concen- 
Concentration  tration  of  opportunity.  From  the  standpoint 
of  financial  support  this  has  required  courage.  Experi- 
enced money-raisers  testify  that  they  can  more  easily  secure 
funds  for  one  or  two  big  schools  than  for  many  smaller 
ones.  Such  is  the  tendency  of  present-day  philanthropy. 
It  likes  great  show  and  to  settle  upon  large  institutions : 
to  the  school  that  hath  shall  be  given.  The  American  is 
peculiarly  under  the  spell  of  bigness.  A  single  one  of 
'  Report  of  Commissioner  of  Education,  1902,  vol.  i,  p.  292. 
[2101 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 


the  larger  institutions  of  the  Association  might  well  ab- 
sorb its  entire  current  income.  Such  an  institution  would 
then  be  able  to  dominate  the  imagination  of  the  public 
along  with  the  one  or  two  which  now  monopolize  it. 

In  spite  of  all  this  the  policy  of  diffusion  is  the  de- 
liberate choice.  The  most  distinctive  American  school  is 
.  the  small  college,  in  intimate  relations  with 
Institutions  its  community  and  with  a  constituency  chiefly 
of  Adequate  local.  As  a  type  it  is  more  widely  useful 
Standard  ^j^^^  ^  great  university  ever  can  be.     Not 

only  is  the  education  of  the  smaller  school  apt  to  be 
sounder  and  its  administration  invariably  more  economic — 
but  it  remains  closer  to  the  people.  Distance  itself  is  a 
selective  agency.  Those  who  go  from  remote  states  even 
to  the  great  trade-schools,  do  not  represent  the  average 
of  their  people.  Every  section,  and  especially  the  South 
with  its  backward  population,  needs  more  than  anything 
else  local  institutions  of  adequate  standard.  Nothing  can 
take  their  place. 


II.    STRATEGIC  LOCATION 

A  certain  prophetic  foresight  seems  to  have  governed 
the  estabhshment  of  the  institutions   of  the   Association. 
.     .  The  general  tendencies  of  negro  population 

Line  of  Chief  within  the  last  fifteen  years  —  massing  that 
Movements  of  popvJation  in  the  cities.  North  and  South, 
Population  ^^^  .^  ^  well-marked  Black  Belt  stretching 

across  the  Central  South  from  Virginia  to  Texas  —  has 
only  emphasized  its  wisdom.  They  affect  unfavorably  a 
few  small  schools  in  the  border  states,  but  every  consider- 
able institution  is  either  in  a  region  overwhelmingly  black, 
to  which  negro  population  is  increasingly  migrating,  or 

[211] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

in  a  city,  with  its  daily  enlarging  need  of  ministry  to  a 
population  undergoing  an  acute  social  transition.  This 
may  be  established  in  detail  by  an  examination  of  insti- 
tutions state  by  state.  On  the  whole,  then,  the  course 
of  events  has  fallen  in  with  the  foresight  of  the  Associa- 
tion to  put  the  great  bulk  of  its  work  exactly  where  it 
ought  to  be.  Such  eliminations  of  unprofitable  work  as 
were  necessary  have  already  taken  place  and  at  little  sacri- 
fice of  resources.  This  is  in  striking  contrast  to  the 
case  of  numerous  other  agencies.  The  negro  sects  have 
too  often  lacked  the  instinct  of  statesmanship  and  failed 
to  locate  their  schools  with  reference  to  the  tendency  of 
population.  For  sentimental  reasons  Berea  College  is 
now  attempting  the  doubtful  experiment  of  establishing 
a  colored  adjunct  in  a  border  state  with  a  small  and 
rapidly  waning  negro  population.  No  agency  has  so  little 
to  correct  in  its  strategy  of  education  as  the  American 
Missionary  Association. 

III.    CLASSIFICATION  OF  INSTITUTIONS 

The  diffusion  of  opportunity  necessitates  a  wide  variety 
of  institutions  falling  under  several  well-marked  types. 
An  All-sided  The  work  of  the  Association  is  truly  all- 
Work  sided,  and  the  much  debated  issue  of  higher 
vs.  industrial  training  is  meaningless  as  applied  to  it.  Its 
schools  have  not  been  founded  on  theory,  but  to  meet 
specific  concrete  needs.  They  range  from  a  three  or  four 
months'  school  with  one  teacher  and  twenty  pupils,  housed 
in  a  windowless  log  cabin,  to  the  great  institutions  which, 
in  promise,  and  even  in  present  realization,  do  not  dis- 
grace the  name  university. 

[212] 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 


A.    Ungraded  Schools 

Negro  communities  which  are  not  furnished  with  even 
the  rudiments  of  education  are  numbered  by  tens  of  thou- 
Defects  of  sands.     What  passes  for  a  school  lacks  every- 

Negro  Rural  thing  of  educational  value.  The  term  is  too 
Public  Schools  brief ;  the  teacher  too  ignorant,  often  im- 
moral and  totally  unsupervised.  One  of  these  teachers 
taught  in  an  entirely  different  district  from  that  to  which 
he  was  appointed,  and  explained  that  it  was  all  the  same 
so  long  as  he  was  at  work  somewhere.  The  pay  is  often 
so  little  as  to  attract  only  the  laziest  and  least  success- 
ful ;  the  housing  conditions  are  unspeakably  bad.  A  Tal- 
ladega graduate  taught  an  entire  school  year  in  a  slab 
schoolhouse  with  solid  blinds  which  were  nailed  shut,  the 
authorities  refusing  to  have  them  opened.  In  a  score  or 
more  such  communities  the  Association  is  touching  the 
problem  of  educational  uplift  in  its  lowliest  aspect.  It 
sends  an  educated  teacher  —  possibly  a  pastor  or  a  pas- 
tor's wife  —  to  supplement  the  public  school  with  an  ad- 
Supplementarv  ditional  two  or  four  months'  session,  or  adds 
Work  of  the  a  subsidy  to  the  public  funds  so  that  a  nor- 
Associatioa  jj^^l  graduate  can  afford  the  place.  Its 
loaves  and  fishes  are  not  miraculously  multiplied  —  and 
what  are  these  among  so  many?  The  appeal  of  hundreds 
of  similar  places  must  annually  be  denied  because  it  is 
more  strategic  to  supply  fewer  communities  more  ade- 
quately. The  policy  of  diffusion  is  already  stretched  to 
its  utmost  limit.  Rudimentary  education  is  essentially  the 
business  of  the  state,  and  to  it  the  state  stands  committed. 
But  the  Association  does  all  its  work  under  a  vivid  sense 
of  the  need  of  these  scattered  communities,  and  of  nothing 
Is  it  prouder  than  of  this  feeblest  aspect  of  its  work. 

[213] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTEUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

On  what  basis  are  these  few  ungraded  schools  selected 
and  located?  Almost  invariably  because  a  graduate  of 
A  Typical  Case :  ^  more  adequate  school  has  gone  to  teach  in 
Beachtown  a  needy  community  and  has  been  able  to 
raise  its  people  to  help  themselves  —  the  Association 
merely  coming  in  to  supplement  local  initiative.  Here  is 
a  concrete  case.  In  southwestern  Georgia,  near  to  the 
Florida  line  and  fourteen  miles  from  a  railroad,  is  a  negro 
community  called  Beachtown.  Few  white  natives  live 
within  a  radius  of  ten  miles,  but  much  of  the  magnificent 
pine  land  has  been  bought  up  by  Northern  millionaires 
for  winter  homes  and  game  preserves.  The  rest  is  mainly 
occupied  and  owned  by  negroes.  A  little  group  of  cross- 
road stores  constitutes  the  geographical  hub  of  the  com- 
munity. Its  energy  and  enterprise  largely  center  around 
a  remarkable  trio  of  mulatto  half-brothers  whose  fathers 
were  leading  white  citizens  of  the  old  regime.  They  own 
the  store  which  was  the  center  of  the  old-time  life,  from  the 
block  in  front  of  which  hundreds  of  negroes  were  sold  as 
slaves.  One  of  them  was  once  a  student  in  Atlanta  Uni- 
versity. Yet  the  richest  man  in  the  community  is  an 
illiterate  black  negro  who  slaved  his  large  family  un- 
sparingly until  he  now  owns  some  hundreds  of  acres,  but 
has  lately  come  around  to  appreciate  education  for  his 
younger  children. 

Indeed  it  was  the  sight  of  their  children  growing  up 
with  so  few  privileges  that  roused  these  men  to  revolt 
How  the  Com-  ^ ^o'^  ^^e  dominance  of  an  illiterate,  grossly 
munity  Helped  sectarian,  and  evil  ministry,  and  to  seek 
Itself  worthy  leadership  and  adequate  school  facili- 

ties. So  they  sent  for  a  Yale-trained  preacher  from  the 
county-seat,  and  appealed  to  the  Association  which  had 
been  the  help  of  their  people  so  many  times  of  old.     They 

[214] 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 

were  told  to  furnish  the  building  and  a  teacher  would 
be  sent.  They  managed  to  erect  a  rough  structure  on 
a  foundation  of  posts,  and  partly  to  side  and  ceil  it.  Its 
windows  were  low  and  narrow,  giving  very  poor  light. 
There  was  no  flue,  and  it  was  seated  with  almost  impos- 
sible home-made  desks  —  but  it  measured  their  ability 
to  help  themselves.  A  teacher  was  sent  for.  She  had 
gone  from  her  country  home  to  Allen  Normal  School  and 
later  to  Fisk  University,  but  she  had  not  been  educated 
out  of  sympathy  with  her  own  region  and  her  own  people. 
Now  she  came  back  to  them.  She  was  janitor,  Sunday- 
school  superintendent,  and  moral  leader  of  the  community, 
as  well  as  teacher.  She  fought  bravely  against  overwork 
and  ill-health.  Into  her  rented  house  she  gathered  half 
a  dozen  girls  from  "  further  back  "  —  girls  whose  com- 
munities had  no  school  at  all.  Her  pupils  came  to  be  too 
many.  Then  the  community  built  a  little  addition  to  the 
schoolhouse  —  I  found  it  in  use  without  door  or  sash  or 
interior  siding.  Again  the  Association  came  to  the  rescue 
with  a  promise  to  pay  a  second  teacher's  salary  if  the 
people  would  complete  the  building.^     Thus  our  formula 

.  ,  .  .,  of  Christian  philanthropy  is  applied:  an  un- 
Applying  the  .    .  ^  .  . 

Formula  of  privileged  community  struggling  for  oppor- 
Christian  tunity    is    made    the   neighbor   of    the    more 

opy  favored  parts  of  the  country  through  a  na- 
tionalizing agency.  The  most  impressive  point  to  the 
story  is  the  struggle  of  that  community  to  help  itself. 
There  are  thousands  of  other  communities  equally  worthy 
waiting  the  outreaching  of  some  helping  hand. 

'  Still  later  the  Slater  Board  added  a  third  salary  for  an  industrial 
teacher. 


215 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

B.    Graded  Elementary  Schools 

Next  in  order  comes  a  group  of  well-conducted  graded 
elementary  schools  with  good  buildings  and  an  average 
of  five  teachers  each.  They  are  located  in  the  country 
or  on  the  outskirts  of  small  towns.  Some  have  boarding 
departments  accommodating  from  twenty  to  fifty  students 
coming  from  a  somewhat  wide  area.  Others  are  purely 
local  in  influence.  Each  one,  besides  the  immediate  service 
to  its  community,  has  a  worthy  record  of  preparing  and 
sending  out  pupils  for  more  advanced  training. 

Trinity  School,  at  Athens,  Alabama,  belongs  to  the  first 
generation  of  American  Missionary  Association  institu- 
A  Historic  tions    founded    during    the    Civil    War.      It 

School  began  its  work  behind  the  bayonets  of  Fed- 

eral troops  for  the  refugees  who  flocked  from  up  and 
down  the  Tennessee  valley.  One  describes  its  early  work 
as  follows: 

A  gaunt  old  house  with  wide-open  cracks,  through 
which  pea-shooters  and  pop-guns  were  often  intro- 
duced to  the  great  discomfort  both  of  teachers  and 
pupils.  In  this  building  Miss  Wells  and  two  other 
women  taught  day  and  night  school  for  a  long  time. 
Cannot  you  picture  that  night  school ;  that  frail, 
alert  little  woman  surrounded  by  a  sea  of  black  faces, 
the  man  in  the  linen  ulster,  the  seven  boys  who  had  one 
pair  of  presentable  trousers  between  them,  and  so 
came  to  school  turn  and  turn  about,  the  old  aunties 
in  homespun,  the  girls  in  missus'  cast-off  finery.'* 
Learning  to  read  was  a  task  then,  I  can  tell  you, 
with  any  odd  leaf  for  a  book  and  a  candle  end  be- 
tween two  for  a  light.  But  they  came,  day  in,  night 
out,  and  many  of  them  learned  to  read  "  de  bressed 
Book,"    and    received    enough    to    be    willing    to    go 

[216] 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 

through  fire  and  water,  if  only  their  children  could 
get  all  which  could  be  given  them. 

Athens  now  is  a  prosperous  county-seat.  Its  people  are 
building  modern  houses.  The  artisans  are  skilled  negroes. 
It  is  pushing  macadamized  roads  out  into  the  country  in 
all  directions.  It  has  some  pretensions  as  an  educational 
center,  boasting  of  its  girls',  its  boys',  and  its  negro  "  col- 
leges." But  its  white  children,  even,  have  never  had  a 
free  public  school ;  little  chance,  then,  for  its  black  chil- 
dren. Through  all  these  years  it  is  Trinity  which  has 
made  them  what  they  are.  Practically  the  whole  negro 
population  can  read  and  write.  It  has  a  number  of  pros- 
perous business  men,  and  has  developed  a  pride  in  and 
sense  of  responsibility  for  its  school  which  the  Association 
has  had  abundant  opportunity  to  prove.  A  year  or  two 
ago  the  old  school  building  burned.  When  the  fire  broke 
out  a  small  colored  girl  was  buying  a  pair  of  doll's  shoes 
in  a  near-by  store.  Catching  up  her  nickel  and  crying, 
"  I  doan'  want  no  doll  shoes,"  she  rushed  out  and  gave  the 
first  money  toward  the  rebuilding  of  the  school,  to  which 
the  negro  community  contributed  in  all  considerably  over 
$1000.  The  old  location  was  abandoned,  and  the  school 
Holding  the  rebuilt  on  the  site  and  within  the  earthworks 
Fort  of  an  old  Federal  fort,  which  once  defended 

and  still  commands  the  town.  In  a  single  year  more  than 
thirty  negro  homes  were  built  around  the  school,  many  of 
them  being  neat  and  comfortable  cottages.  The  white 
community  showed  its  recognition  of  the  work  by  a  vote  of 
$100  from  the  city  council  as  well  as  by  offerings  in  the 
churches.  Now  a  commodious  brick  building  stands  within 
the  fringe  of  trees  which  marks  the  outline  of  the  old  for- 
tress ;   there  Trinity  still  holds  the  fort. 

[217] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

The  greatest  need  of  the  negro  is  frequently  not  found 
in  the  Black  Belt  where  he  outnumbers  the  white  popula- 
Where  Negroes  tion  and  by  sheer  force  of  numbers  demands 
are  Few  recognition   and   a  share  in   the  educational 

provision  of  the  state.  It  is  often  found  among  the 
sparser  population  of  the  Piedmont  region,  especially 
where  the  burden  of  the  illiterate  whites  is  great,  as  in  the 
mill  towns ;  or  in  decaying  communities.  Such  a  one  is 
Hillsboro,  one  of  the  ancient  capitals  of  North  Carolina. 
It  has  a  few  hundred  humble  negro  citizens  who  share  the 
fortunes  of  a  once  aristocratic  but  now  crumbling  town. 
King  George  III  gave  the  clock  in  the  court-house,  and 
Lord  Comwallis  laid  the  rough  pavement  in  front  of  the 
Inn.  These  are  the  last  public  improvements  that  Hills- 
boro has  had.  One  of  the  very  few  Southerners  I  ever  met 
who  did  not  brag  of  his  section  was  a  man  who  was  at- 
tempting to  start  a  mill  in  the  face  of  Hillsboro  con- 
servatism. 

On  the  outskirts  of  the  village  stands  a  neat  two-room 
schoolhouse  with  tower  and  bell.  It  is  well  equipped  within 
with  blackboards  and  maps  and  other  school  facilities.  In 
it  the  Association  has  carried  on  for  a  hundred  negro 
children  of  Hillsboro  a  better  school  than  its  white  chil- 
dren have  had  for  many,  many  years.  The  two  teachers 
live  snugly  in  an  ancient  brick  house  which  is  the  head- 
quarters of  the  higher  life  of  the  negro  community.  Their 
missionary  work  is  of  the  old-fashioned  but  never-worn- 
out  personal  sort.  They  go  out  into  the  homes  and  share 
the  joy  and  sorrow,  the  sickness  and  health  of  the  people. 
They  teach  the  mothers  and  gather  in  the  young  people. 
They  have  a  little  night  class  for  young  men  ambitious  for 
more  education.  They  put  moral  character  and  Northern 
energy  into  the  negro  churches.     There  is  nothing  better 

[218] 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 

than  work  of  this  character  done  simply  but  effectively  in 
the  places  of  actual  need.  The  South  as  represented  in 
Hillsboro  cannot  begin  to  meet  the  problem  of  its  poor 
white  population.     Here  at  least  is  missionary  ground. 

But  after  all  the  most  frequent  spots  of  need  and  help- 
lessness are  in  the  Black  Belts.  Such  a  one  I  found  in 
Where  Negroes  Cotton  Valley,  in  the  same  county  with  Tus- 
are  Many  kegee  in  central  Alabama.    I  had  been  to  Tus- 

kegee  the  previous  day  and  had  driven  from  the  junction 
to  the  Institute  over  a  hard,  sandy  road  on  which  the 
wheels  made  scarcely  a  mark.  Cotton  Valley  was  only  ten 
miles  distant,  yet  the  four-mile  journey  from  the  railroad 
to  the  school  was  over  unspeakable  roads  with  mud  to  the 
hubs.  At  Tuskegee  I  saw  the  greatest  single  institution 
developed  by  negro  energy ;  from  the  school  at  Cotton 
Valley  I  could  not  see  a  single  farm  owned  by  a  negro. 
Hardly  one  of  the  fathers  of  the  some  two  hundred  and 
fifty  pupils  was  known  to  have  title  to  enough  ground  in 
which  to  bury  him.^  The  explanation  of  the  sharp  con- 
trast lies  in  the  difference  between  sand  and  mud.  Mr. 
W^ashington  was  able  to  acquire  a  great  domain  for  his 
school  because  the  land  was  originally  of  little  agricultural 
value.  The  negroes  of  Cotton  Valley  have  been  unable  to 
break  away  from  the  tenant  system  because  their  famous 
cotton  crops  have  made  the  price  of  land  impossibly  high. 
Frequently  the  richer  the  soil  the  more  tenacious  the 
owner,  the  more  grasping  the  money-lender ;  consequently 
the  poorer  the  negro.  The  school  has  discovered  striking 
exceptions,  but  I  never  saw  more  serf-like  human  beings 

*  Since  this  statement  was  written  five  families  have  begun  to  purchase 
little  farms.  This  was  made  possible  by  the  subdivision  of  small  planta- 
tions. It  was  undertaken  as  a  direct  result  of  the  leadership  of  the  school, 
whose  teacher  made  the  business  arrangements. 

[219] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

than  the  stohd  groups  of  tenants  gathered  at  the  railway 
station  and  the  rude  country  store. 

The  country  store  merits  a  second  look,  for  it  is  the  hub 
of  the  whole  scheme  of  existence  in  which  the  negro  finds 
himself,  as  Mr.  Baker  graphically  explains : 

Many  negro  families  possess  practically  nothing 
of  their  own,  save  their  ragged  clothing,  and  a  few 
dollars'  worth  of  household  furniture,  cooking  uten- 
sils, and  a  gun.  The  landlord  must  therefore  supply 
them  not  only  with  enough  to  live  on  while  they  are 
making  their  crop,  but  with  the  entire  farming  outfit. 
Let  us  say  that  a  negro  comes  in  November  to  rent 
a  one-mule  farm  from  the  landlord  for  the  coming 
year. 

"  What  Tiave  you  got?  "   asks  the  landlord. 

"  Not'ing,  boss,"  he  is  quite  likely  to  say. 

The  "  boss  "  furnishes  him  with  a  cabin  to  live  in 

—  which  goes  with  the  land  rented  —  a  mule,  a 
plow,  possibly  a  one-horse  wagon,  and  a  few  tools. 
He  is  often  given  a  few  dollars  in  cash  near  Christ- 
mas time  which   (ordinarily)   he  immediately  spends 

—  wastes.  He  is  then  allowed  to  draw  upon  the 
plantation  supply  store  a  regular  amount  of  corn  to 
feed  his  mule,  and  meat,  bread,  and  tobacco,  and  some 
clothing  for  his  family.  The  cost  of  the  entire  outfit 
and  supplies  for  a  year  is  in  the  neighborhood  of 
$300,  upon  which  the  tenant  pays  interest  at  from  10 
to  30  per  cent,  from  the  time  of  signing  the  contract 
in  November,  although  most  of  the  supplies  are  not 
taken  out  until  the  next  summer.  Besides  this  interest 
the  planter  also  makes  a  large  profit  on  all  the  gro- 
ceries and  other  necessaries  furnished  by  his  supply 
store.  Having  made  his  contract  the  negro  goes  to 
work  with  his  whole  family  and  keeps  at  it  until  the 
next  fall  when  the  cotton  is   all  picked  and  ginned. 

[220] 


TllANSI'OUTATION,  LiHF.RTY    Co.,  Ga. 


Homes  is  the  Land  of  Mud-Daub 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 

Then  he  comes  in  for  his  "  settlement "  —  a  great 
time  of  the  year.-^ 

Now  the  actual  goodness  or  badness  of  any  human  in- 
stitution depends  upon  the  character  of  the  men  who  oper- 
ate it.  But  some  institutions  give  greater  opportunity  for 
good  or  evil,  and  the  tenant  system  of  the  South  under 
which  the  ignorant  and  friendless  negro  is  practically  and 
legally  at  the  mercy  of  the  white  landlord,  certainly  gives 
the  maximum  opportunity  for  evil.  Wherever  I  have  in- 
quired in  twelve  states,  I  have  been  frankly  told  that  a  con- 
siderable number  of  planters  and  money-sharks  live  by 
"  skinning  the  nigger."  I  witnessed  the  signing  of  a  be- 
lated contract  between  Jim  Freeman  and  his  landlord. 
Jim's  worldly  wealth  consisted  in  "  one  blind  mule  named 
Nell,"  a  few  rude  tools  (the  Department  of  Agriculture 
estimates  the  negro  tenant's  farm  implements  as  worth 
$7.50  on  the  average),  and  a  huddle  of  household  goods 
which  lay  on  the  depot  platform  in  the  February  rain. 
His  human  resources  were  five  cotton  hands,  himself,  a 
wife,  a  half-grown  son,  and  two  small  daughters.  It  was 
plainly  to  his  immediate  advantage  to  get  even  a  leaky 
cabin  as  a  refuge  from  the  rain,  and  a  peck  of  meal  for 
his  children's  supper,  but  I  wish  I  had  been  certain  that 
his  accounts  would  be  honestly  kept  by  the  merchant,  his 
cotton  honestly  weighed,  and  his  share  at  the  end  of  the 
year  proportioned  to  his  toil;  for  however  inefficient  a 
man,  it  is  always  pertinent  to  ask  whether  he  gets  a  just 
equivalent  for  what  he  actually  does. 

From  its  beginning,  twenty  years  ago,  the  school  at 
Cotton  Valley  has  been  in  charge  of  a  remarkable  series  of 
colored  women  as  principals  and  teachers.    They  have  had 

*  Baker,  Following  the  Color-Line,  pp.  74-75. 

[221] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

the  genius  for  making  much  of  little,  a  native  faculty  for 
business  and  an  instinct  for  neatness  and  order.  One 
A  Humble  sees  this  in  the  clean,  well-kept  look  of  the 

History  place,  with  its  trim  buildings,  its  newly  swept 

yard  and  whitewashed  fences.  The  nails  still  hold  in  the 
rude  beams  of  the  old,  one-room  cabin  where  the  first 
teacher  hung  a  curtain  partitioning  off  her  sleeping  corner 
from  the  family  with  nine  boys,  thereby  bringing  the  first 
dawn  of  a  better  womanhood  to  Cotton  Valley.  Efficiency 
and  earnestness  made  a  good  school  even  when  it  was 
lodged  in  a  little  cluster  of  now  disused  cabins.  I  found  a 
good  school  when  the  five  teachers  had  but  three  class 
rooms  between  them  and  had  to  keep  double  recitations  in 
process.  Only  just  now  has  the  Association  been  able  to 
add  two  rooms  to  the  building,  and  still  the  pupils  average 
nearly  fifty  to  a  room.  February  being  the  birth  month  of 
certain  great  Americans,  the  teacher  had  the  school  re- 
view what  it  had  learned  on  the  subject.  All  remembered 
that  Lincoln  was  born  on  the  12th.  "  Now,  children,  what 
happened  on  the  2^d?  "  Inspired  by  the  presence  of  com- 
pany, Johnnie  spoke  up  loud  and  clear,  "  He  done  riz  on 
the  22d."  Tuition  is  ten  cents  a  month  in  the  upper  grades 
and  Amelia's  mother  sent  but  five.  Teacher  said,  "  Tell 
your  mother  she  must  send  five  cents  more  tuition."  Next 
morning  the  mother  appeared  demanding  explanation. 
"  Teacher,  I  doan'  un'erstan'  'bout  this  yere  ishun.  I 
dun  sen'  one  ishun ;   now  you  wan'  two  ishun." 

The  teacher's  home  near  by  the  school  is  the  pride  of 
the  Valley  as  its  only  two-story  building,  but  its  occupants 
Making  Much  find  it  a  snug  fit.  Only  by  evolutions  of  mili- 
out  of  Little  tary  precision  is  the  household  able  to  gather 
round  the  dining-room  table,  and  once  placed  one  cannot 
move  until  all  the  rest  do.     There  is  a  built-in  sideboard, 

[  222  ] 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 

the  work  of  a  lady  teacher  whose  father  was  an  old-time 
mechanic.  She  also  laid  the  front  walk  out  of  frag-ments 
of  brick.  In  one  of  the  dark  and  sagging  old  cabins  she 
is  pluckily  trying  to  teach  girls  to  make  their  own 
clothes.  This  touches  the  final  need  of  Cotton  Valley,  — 
a  small  building  and  equipment  for  the  teaching  of  indus- 
tries —  cooking  and  sewing  for  girls,  simple  farm  mechan- 
ics for  boys,  and  elementary  agriculture  for  both.  Then 
this  fairly  typical  country  graded  school  will  have  compre- 
hended its  ideal. 

C.    Secondary  Schools  in  Cities 

This  comprises  another  distinct  group  of  institutions. 
Their  nomenclature  is  somewhat  disguising.  They  are  gen- 
erally called  normal  schools  or  institutes.  The  plain  word 
for  them  is  that  all  are  more  or  less  satisfactory  city  high 
schools,  doing  solid  work  with  somewhat  limited  curricula. 

The  boundary  between  elementary  and  secondary  educa- 
tion is  conventional,  but  is  commonly  located  after  the 
seventh  or  eighth  school  year.  A  fourth  of  the  so-called 
white  high  schools  of  the  South  count  the  seventh  year  as 
belonging  to  secondary  rank.  Thus,  not  infrequently,  the 
negro  high  school  supported  by  the  Association  is  found 
to  be  higher  in  grade  and  superior  in  equipment  to  the 
corresponding  white  school  of  its  city.  In  fact,  the  work 
of  several  of  them  is  as  advanced  and  as  worthy  as  that  of 
many  "  colleges  "  in  this  section. 

Almost  all  this  group  of  schools  have  retained  a  part  at 
least  of  the  elementary  course.  This  is  necessitated  by  the 
rp  •  g]  generally  poor  preparation  for  secondary 
mentary  Edu-  work  furnished  by  the  inefficient  and  crude 
cation  over  to  negro  public  schools,  which  frequently  do  not 
^    °^  include  even  a  full  elementary  course.     The 

[223] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

flourishing  city  of  Macon,  Georgia,  for  example,  carries 
its  negro  children  only  through  the  sixth  year.  This  com- 
pels the  Ballard  Normal  School  to  furnish  two  seventh  and 
two  eighth  grades  in  order  to  supply  the  hordes  of  appli- 
cants. Sometimes  the  elementary  grades  are  perpetuated 
as  a  model  school  for  the  training  of  practise  teachers. 
The  general  tendency,  however,  is  to  be  aggressively  insist- 
ent that  the  prosperous  and  growing  cities  of  the  South 
shall  furnish  the  elementary  education  for  all  their  children 
to  which  they  are  theoretically  committed.  Consequently, 
the  lower  grades  are  now  being  progressively  abandoned  in 
six  of  the  leading  schools  of  the  Association.  Such  move- 
ments are  frequently  resisted  by  negro  communities  which 
prefer  the  sympathizing  and  generally  superior  instruction 
of  the  mission  school  to  the  lax  officialism  and  neglect  of 
the  public  authorities.  They  plead  for  the  continuance  of 
primary  instruction  on  the  ground  that  otherwise  their 
children  will  get  poor  teaching  in  unsanitary  buildings,  — 
often  on  immoral  streets.  Yet  experience  has  shown  that 
this  very  attitude  of  distrust  and  disregard  for  the  public 
schools  on  the  part  of  the  negro  is  frequently  the  excuse  of 
the  white  authorities  for  not  improving  them.  Negro 
public  opinion  has  weight,  and  when  it  persistently  de- 
mands its  educational  rights  and  recognizes  the  obligation 
to  cooperate  with  public  authority  it  often  meets  surpris- 
ingly cordial  response  in  the  ready  betterment  of  elemen- 
tary educational  facilities. 

But  with  the  higher  schools  the  case  is  quite  different. 
The  idea  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  state  to  furnish  free 
Lack  of  Public  secondary  schooling  for  anybody  is  imper- 
High  Schools  fectly  rooted  in  the  South.  The  more  con- 
servative cities  have  but  recently  opened  public  high 
schools  even  for  whites.    There  is  not  only  no  sense  of  obli- 

[224] 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 

gation  to  do  a  like  thing  for  negro  youth,  but  on  the  whole 
a  general  agreement  that  all  the  negro  is  entitled  to  is 
five,  six,  or  at  best  eight  years  of  elementary  training. 
This  attitude  of  mind  forgets  that  every  citizen  of  a  demo- 
cratic state  has  a  righteous  claim  to  all  the  opportunity 
publicly  provided  for  any.  It  also  forgets  the  rapidly  in- 
creasing differentiation  of  negro  society  and  the  diffusion 
of  its  members  through  all  the  occupations  and  callings  of 
our  modern  civilization.  In  every  Southern  city  there  is  a 
considerable  negro  minority  which  has  fairly  earned  the 
right  to  high-school  training  for  its  children  —  by  dig- 
nity of  character,  personal  culture,  wealth,  and  social  at- 
tainment. The  South  —  with  some  exception  in  the  border 
states  —  disdains  their  aspirations  and  there  are  no  signs 
that  its  attitude  will  speedily  change.  Except  for  the  in- 
adequate and  grudging  support  of  a  few  public  institu- 
tions for  the  training  of  negro  teachers,  the  whole  field  of 
secondary  education  is  left  to  philanthropy  and  the  negro's 
private  efforts. 

Take  Savannah,  for  example,  a  typical  Southern  city, 
with  a  population  of  33,000  whites  and  39,000  negroes. 
Its  negro  school  population  is  8023  and  its  enrolment 
2591  (or  less  than  one-third)  ;  if  every  existing  school, 
public  and  private,  were  crowded  to  the  doors,  fully 
one-half  of  Savannah's  negro  children  would  have  neither 
book,  desk,  nor  teacher.  This  in  itself  justifies  Beach 
Institute.  The  situation  loudly  demands  the  help  of  the 
mission  school,  at  least  in  its  elementary  grades.  But 
what  of  the  high  school  .-^  Does  the  negro  community 
need  or  merit  it? 

I  went  with  the  principal  to  find  out  what  the  constitu- 
ency would  contribute  to  add  an  eleventh  grade  and  de- 
partments of  manual  training  and  domestic  science  to  its 

15  [ 225  ] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

work.  First  we  called  on  the  typical  Southern  gentleman 
—  socially  classified  as  negro  —  who  holds  the  best  federal 
office  in  Georgia  —  Colonel  Deveaux,  Collector  of  the  Port. 
Before  I  knew  the  South,  I  supposed  the  appointment  of 
negroes  to  such  positions  was  mere  politics ;  I  now  see  that 
it  is  the  appropriate  recognition  of  the  substantial  achieve- 
ment of  the  race  and  its  considerable  part  in  the  devel- 
opment of  its  section.  Savannah  growls  that  the  Presi- 
dent sets  a  negro  over  its  commerce,  but  it  has  itself  set  a 
colored  doctor  over  a  more  important  matter  —  the 
health  of  a  whole  district  of  its  people.  We  visited  him  in 
his  office  and  heard  about  the  awful  but  slowly  decreasing 
negro  death-rate  and  the  struggle  of  sanitary  science  with 
ignorance  and  vice  for  the  life  of  children. 

The  chief  negro  commercial  enterprises  of  Savannah  are 
in  the  neighborhood  of  the  Union  Depot.  Here  we  visited 
the  bank,  the  newspaper  offices,  stores.  The  bank  is  a  com- 
paratively young  institution  for  which  the  color-line  is 
directly  responsible.  Jim  Crow  methods  arrived  slowly  in 
this  conservative  city.  When,  however,  it  came  to  pass 
that  a  negro  with  money  to  deposit  found  that  he  had  to 
go  to  a  separate  teller's  window  he  decided  to  bank  with 
his  own  race.  In  connection  with  the  bank  is  a  flourishing 
building  and  loan  association  which  has  enabled  a  hun- 
dred patrons  to  pay  out  on  their  homes  and  will  help  hun- 
dreds more.  I  found  the  newspaper  —  an  influential  race 
organ  throughout  the  state  —  just  moving  into  larger 
quarters,  from  a  building  where  it  had  been  continuously 
published  for  more  than  twenty-five  years.  Skilled  negro 
mechanics  were  installing  the  improved  presses.  (There 
are  seven  negro  trade-unions  —  the  bricklayers,  carpen- 
ters, coopers,  building  laborers,  lathers,  pattern-turners, 
besides  colored  members  in  other  unions.)     They  can  buy 

[226] 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 

their  groceries  at  a  negro  store  which  for  equipment  and 
stock  ranks  with  the  better  estabhshments  of  the  city. 
Across  the  street  from  the  bank,  I  was  shown  a  row  of 
houses  acquired  by  a  colored  postal  clerk  through  shrewd 
real  estate  investment.  Every  tourist  makes  an  extensive 
acquaintance  with  the  hackmen  of  Savannah.  I  found  that 
many  of  them  make  a  very  good  living  showing  the  sights 
of  one  of  the  South's  most  attractive  cities  and  that  the 
negro  boycott  of  the  street  cars  —  after  their  "  Jim 
Crowing  "  two  years  ago  —  helped  many  of  these  Jehu's 
over  into  the  ranks  of  the  comfortable  and  property- 
owning.  I  visited  two  of  the  four  negro  public  schools, 
and  later  met  a  group  of  the  colored  leaders  of  the  city  — 
many  of  them  graduates  of  Beach  —  and  most  of  them 
members  of  the  two  churches,  Episcopal  and  Congrega- 
tional, which  have  attracted  the  more  intelligent  classes. 
In  each  of  these  churches  the  service  is  habitually  as  de- 
corous and  restrained  as  in  the  middle-class  white  churches 
of  the  North.  Their  ministers  are  scholarly  men  of 
Northern  theological  education,  respected  throughout  the 
city  for  character  and  trusted  as  conservative  race  leaders. 
Other  denominations  are  much  stronger,  some  of  their 
churches  dating  back  over  a  century;  and  several  have 
pastors  of  distinct  power  in  the  pulpit.  Recently  an  inter- 
denominational Men's  Sunday  Club  has  been  organized  to 
minister  to  the  social  needs  of  the  race  on  a  somewhat 
broader  basis  than  that  of  ordinary  Y.  M.  C.  A.  work. 
A  group  of  well-educated  and  successful  physicians  has 
been  active  with  the  pastors  and  educators  of  this  move- 
ment. I  met  also  a  highly  respected  negro  lawyer  and  got 
glimpses  of  more  than  one  home  of  taste,  culture,  and  all 
the  true  graces  of  life. 

Now  the  facts  are  that  if  white  Savannah  should  suffer 

[227] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

the  fate  of  Sennacherib's  army  some  night,  black  Savannah 
would  wake  up  to  carry  on  the  entire  business  of  modem 
city  civilization  with  scarcely  a  jar.  Yet  the  Savannah 
negro  is  comparatively  backward  in  developing  separate 
institutions.    The  relations  of  the  races  have  been  relatively 


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Ballard,  Macon,  Ga.    .    . 

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174 

20 

3000 

$40,000 

Avery,  Charleston,  S.  C. 

5 

2 

174 

27 

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20,000 

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2000 

150,000 

Beach,  Savannah,  Ga.  .    . 

3 

4 

63 

20 

200 

10,000 

kindly ;  consequently  the  negro  has  not  been  forced  upon 
his  own  resources  as  in  dozens  of  more  strenuous  communi- 
ties. But  this  is  clear :  there  is  a  negro  group  there  which 
has  every  right  to  a  high  school  for  its  children  that  any 
American  group  has.  They  are  not  going  into  kitchens 
and  the  fields  for  the  same  reason  that  the  white  children 
of  white  "  upper  classes  "  are  not ;  their  economic  status 
does  not  require  it  nor  should  it  lead  any  one  to  expect  it. 
I  personally  believe  that  it  is  not  well  for  the  nation  to  give 
any  portion  of  its  youth  a  merely  academic  and  socially 

[228] 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 

ornamental  education ;  consequently  I  am  proud  that  the 
Beach  Aid  Association,  organized  by  representatives  of 
the  groups  I  have  just  described,  has  made  possible  the 
addition  of  manual  training  and  domestic  science  to  the 
curriculum  of  the  school.  The  equipment  for  these  de- 
partments was  secured  partly  by  direct  appropriations 
from  negro  trade-union  treasuries. 

The  foregoing  table  indicates  the  scope  and  development 
of  some  of  the  larger  city  schools  of  the  Association. 

From  such  fully  manned  and  equipped  institutions, 
schools  of  this  group  grade  down  to  those  with  twenty  or 
thirty  pupils,  two  teachers  and  only  two  years  of  secondary 
work.  The  teachers,  however,  are  almost  invariably  college 
or  normal  school  graduates,  and  the  work,  up  to  the  meas- 
ure of  its  facilities,  acceptably  fulfils  standard  requirements. 

Ministering  as  they  chiefly  do  to  that  part  of  the  negro 

population  which  has  arrived  at  a  large  measure  of  parti- 

T,   , ,         p         cipation  in  American  civilization,  the  educa- 

rroblems  or  .  ^ 

City  Secondary    tional  problems  of  these  schools  are  not  pecu- 

Schools  not         liarlv   racial   but   are   those   common   to   the 
"^  high-school  situation  throughout  the  nation. 

Beyond  question  they  are  serious  enough;  but  they  are 
being  worked  out  along  the  most  hopeful  lines  of  modern 
progress,  including  enriched  courses  of  study,  increasing 
provision  for  specialization,  laboratory  methods  in  science, 
and  the  inclusion  of  commercial  studies,  together  with 
generous  provision  for  instruction  in  household  and  man- 
ual training.  In  many  respects  they  are  rapidly  becoming 
model  high  schools. 

D.    Rural  Secondary  Schools 

The  most  striking  contrast  between  this  group  of  schools 
and  the  one  last  considered  is  that  between  the  boarding  and 

[229] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    11;?    THE    SOUTH 

The  Advantage  ^^^  ^^y  school.  A  few  of  the  city  schools 
of  the  Rural  have  boarding  departments  but  these  are 
School  proportionately  small  and  invariably  domin- 

ated by  the  ideals  and  relations  of  the  day  school.  The 
institution  gets  its  tone  and  character  from  the  five  or  sis 
hours  of  schoolroom  discipline.  The  rural  secondary 
schools  on  the  contrary  are  permanent  communities,  often 
remote  from  towns.  Within  them  all  the  activities  of  life 
go  on,  and  the  work  of  education  is  a  matter  of  twenty- 
four  hours  in  a  day  and  seven  days  in  a  week.  Conse- 
quently their  opportunity  both  for  educational  impress 
and  for  the  forming  of  character  is  infinitely  greater. 
Their  human  material  is  less  select,  coming  as  it  does 
directly  from  the  woods  and  fields,  and  their  scholastic  re- 
sults are  hampered  by  the  poverty  of  the  students,  most 
of  whom  are  engaged  in  the  struggle  for  a  livelihood  prac- 
tically throughout  their  school  years,  and  are  consequently 
distracted  in  mind  and  irregular  in  attendance.  Their 
secondary  departments  are  all  small  and  do  not  so  gener- 
ally reach  standard  results.  Nevertheless  their  advanced 
work  is  genuine  and  its  ideals  give  character  to  this  whole 
type  of  institution. 

It   is    characteristic   of   these   schools   not   only    to   be 
located  in  the  country  but  largely  to  get  their  support 

_  „        from    the   land.      They    are    typically    farm 

The  Most  Eco-        ,       i     ■         i  •  ,         ,  ■      -.         /  -i 

nomicaland        schools  m  which  a  large  majority  or  pupils 

Effective  support  themselves  in  part  or  in  whole  by 

Schools  in  productive  labor  in  connection  with  the  in- 

stitution.  This  necessitates  farm-buildings, 
animals,  and  implements,  the  raising  of  produce  for  the 
feeding  of  the  school,  a  wide  range  of  practical  activities 
involving  business  and  administrative  ability,  and  much  in- 
dustrial and  domestic  training,  each  theoretical  stage  of 

[230] 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 

which  finds  an  Immediate  practical  application  in  the  day's 
work.  The  narrow  gap  between  what  the  pupil  can  earn 
for  himself  and  the  cost  of  his  rigidly  economical  schooling 
is  bridged  by  scholarship  funds  distributed  in  small 
amounts  to  a  large  number  of  pupils.  This  union  of  pro- 
ductive labor  and  education  within  the  strong  discipline 
and  personal  influences  of  a  moderately  sized  institution, 
constitutes  probably  the  most  economical  and  effective 
type  of  education  in  America.  Gradually  the  more  prom- 
ising group  of  these  institutions  are  being  developed 
into  distinctly  agricultural  high  schools,  their  aim  be- 
ing to  add  the  education  of  insight  for  the  few  to  the  edu- 
cation of  good  habits  for  the  many  and  to  be  centers  of 
leadership  and  inspiration  along  all  lines  of  rural  better- 
.  ment.     For  the  training  of  farmers  especially 

Opportunity  ^^^  opportunity  of  these  schools  is  unrivaled. 
of  the  Small  The  prosperity  of  the  South  depends  upon 
Agricultural  ^  great  extension  of  diversified  agriculture 
and  a  diffusion  of  the  leaven  of  improved 
farm  methods  from  many  centers.  The  boy  who  leaves 
his  community  to  attend  a  far-distant  school  all  too  fre- 
quently never  returns.  These  modest  rural  high  schools 
give  him  a  rarely  practical  farm  training  without  divorc- 
ing him  from  his  native  soil,  and  at  a  minimum  of  expense. 
I  am  positively  convinced  that  in  all  lines  of  industrial 
training  except  specialized  trades  courses,  the  work  of 
these  smaller  schools,  which  bring  opportunity  home  to  the 
masses,  is  more  efficient,  more  in  line  with  a  sound  social 
policy  and  more  serviceable  to  the  negro  race  than  that  of 
the  great  mass  schools  which  so  dominate  the  public  imag- 
ination. The  practical  operations  of  a  large  group  of  such 
institutions  —  the  building  and  repairing  of  their  plants, 

the  development  and  management  of  their  farms,  the  run- 

-_ 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

ning  of  their  engines,  the  shoeing  of  their  mules,  the  sharp- 
ening of  their  tools  —  train  more  practical  mechanics 
than  Hampton  and  Tuskegee  have  ever  done.  An  acre 
which  must  supply  to-morrow's  pork  and  greens  has  more 
educational  virtue  in  it  than  a  play  garden  and  a  show 
farm.  How  little  need  of  indirect  educational  devices  when 
the  situation  itself  constitutes  an  almost  ideal  opportunity 
for  vitally  practical  training ! 

A  typical  school  of  tliis  group  is  Dorchester  Academy, 
located  among  the  swamps  of  Liberty  County,  Georgia, 
.  rp    •    ,  about  thirty  miles  south  of  Savannah.     This 

School:  county  was  originally  settled  by  Massachu- 

Dorchester  setts  Puritans  who  established  there  one  of 

emy  ^j^^    most   famous    and    efficient    communities 

in  Georgia.  Their  great  plantations  were  formerly  chiefly 
given  to  the  culture  of  rice.  Now  the  region  is  almost 
wholly  in  the  hands  of  negroes  who  are  for  the  most  part 
property  owners.  Out  of  this  new  material  on  old  Congre- 
gational foundations  the  rebuilding  of  the  commonwealth 
is  going  on. 

Every  family  in  the  present  Congregational  church  owns 
its  property  and  their  case  is  general  throughout  the  re- 
gion. The  holdings  vary  from  five  to  three  hundred  acres, 
averaging  perhaps  fifteen.  The  rice  industry  was  in  eco- 
nomic collapse  long  before  Sherman  came  that  way  and 
burned  the  plantation  houses.  Thus  it  happened  that 
after  the  war  the  practically  abandoned  lands  were  easily 
acquired  by  the  negroes.  They  are  worth  now  from  $5 
to  $10  per  acre.  Rice,  cane,  and  corn  are  raised,  but 
merely  for  home  consumption  and  to  be  bartered  by 
basketfuls  for  clothing  and  luxuries  (tobacco,  snuff,  and 
canned  goods)  at  the  village  store.  Except  for  a  few 
shapeless   marsh    cattle    driven    to    the    Savannah   market 

[  232  ] 


Q 

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(XI 

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Q 

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X 

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TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 

and  some  scattering  bales  of  cotton,  the  country  sends 
nothing  out  into  the  world.  The  trucking  industry 
has  just  begun,  but  with  reasonable  development  it 
might  make  the  region  rich.  From  November  to  March 
the  farmer  expects  to  eke  out  a  living  by  cutting  wood  for 
railroad  ties,  at  which  in  good  times  he  makes  excellent 
wages.  Crop  mortgages  are  unknown  and  long-time 
credit  is  rare.  Bills  are  paid  monthly  or  oftener.  Thus 
the  Liberty  County  negro,  however  poor,  is  relatively  in- 
dependent with  his  little  farm,  his  store  of  rice  and  grit 
and  meat,  his  ox  to  drive  and  his  supplementary  cash  wage ; 
and  his  wife  and  daughter,  though  still  to  a  considerable 
extent  doing  rough  field  labor,  have  more  time  for  home- 
making  than  in  the  cotton-raising  regions. 

The  poorer  homes  are  sagging  log  huts,  with  mud- 
daubed  chimneys,  windowless  and  almost  floorless.  Some- 
times they  are  without  a  table  or  chair,  their  only  beds 
ragged  blankets  on  the  floor  and  their  meals  always  eaten 
from  the  skillet ;  their  children  nameless  savages,  half- 
clothed  and  scarcely  above  jungle  conditions.  The  best 
home,  Isaac  Morrison's,  would  be  counted  a  comfortable 
ten-room  farmhouse  in  New  York  or  Illinois.  Morrison 
has  three  hundred  acres  and  above  sixty  head  of  cattle. 
These  "  rough  it  "  for  nine  months  in  the  year,  and  are 
fattened  for  three  on  wild  hay  and  rice  straw;  they  then 
bring  about  $15  per  head  in  Savannah.  He  has  his  own 
cane-mill  and  reducing  plant  —  a  great  iron  kettle  set 
in  a  mud  furnace  with  mud  chimney.  He  raises  about  fif- 
teen acres  of  rice  and  ten  of  cotton,  yielding  half  a  bale 
per  acre  in  good  years.  He  has  three  horses  and  is  well 
supplied  with  razor-back  hogs  and  poultry.  His  out- 
buildings are  well  constructed ;  he  has  pine-thatched  shel- 
ters for  his  cattle.     In  his  well-kept  gardens  are  turnips, 

[233] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

cabbages,  and  fruit.  He  has  had  fourteen  children,  two 
of  whom  are  dead,  three  married,  and  four  now  teaching 
country  schools.  His  prosperity  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
he  worked  them  all  desperately  hard.  Yet  with  the  mis- 
sion school  at  their  door,  they  got  something  of  an  edu- 
cation. Now  Isaac  rents  out  much  of  his  land  and  hires 
less  prosperous  neighbors  to  do  his  work. 

These  are  the  extremes.  As  I  rode  through  the  coun- 
try in  the  springtime  and  noted  the  homes  I  saw  not 
less  than  two-score  newly  built  houses  within  a  radius  of 
a  dozen  miles.  These  invariably  were  of  frame  and  clap- 
boards instead  of  logs,  and  had  brick  chimneys.  The 
tough  clay  which  made  this  region  so  long  the  character- 
istic land  of  mud-daub  is  now  being  turned  at  a  near-by 
plant  into  a  fine  quality  of  roofing  tile,  and  one  frequently 
sees  the  anomaly  of  houses  worth  scarcely  a  hundred 
dollars  with  roofs  which  would  grace  a  million  dollar 
cathedral. 

It  is  interesting  to  find  under  such  an  up-to-date  roof 
(domestic  utensils  of  purely  African  pattern.  Rice  is 
threshed  in  a  wooden  mortar  reminiscent  of  the  jungle  and 
winnowed  by  being  thrown  in  the  air  and  caught  in  broad 
"  fanners  "  or  baskets  of  rice  straw. 

In  the  outlying  coast  communities,  where  the  influence 
of  the  mission  schools  has  not  been  present,  primitive 
traits  tend  to  appear,  especially  in  social  and  religious  life. 
The  coast  swamp  negro  has  many  local  dialects  in  which 
corrupted  African  words  are  alleged  to  survive.  Sectarian 
church  organizations  are  said  to  be  declining  in  favor  of 
the  local  lodges  or  burial  and  relief  societies.  This  is  un- 
doubtedly a  reversion  from  a  higher  to  a  more  primitive 
type  of  social  organization.  The  country  is  dotted  over 
with  the  halls  of  such  societies,  whose  thatched  feasting 

[234] 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 

sheds  attest  the  essentially  sensuous  character  of  prim- 
itive religions,  out  of  which  the  negro  is  struggling.  I 
recall  a  weird  night  meeting  in  such  a  hall;  a  gigantic 
lodge-leader,  plainly  a  witch-doctor  in  thin  disguise,  stand- 
ing before  an  enormous  fireplace,  whose  lurid  flames  made 
mysterious  shadows  creep  up  and  down  the  unhewn  rafters 
of  the  cavernous  room ;  a  half  hundred  worshipers  crouch- 
ing in  semi-darkness  relieved  only  by  the  flashing  of  fanat- 
ical eyes ;  the  alternate  wildness  and  plaintive  passion  of 
prayer  and  song,  till  the  mood  of  spiritual  burden  passed 
and  the  meeting  resolved  into  a  rhythmic  dance  of  relief 
and  joy,  from  which  fleshly  impulses  were  not  entirely 
absent. 

A  few  years  ago,  indeed,  not  far  from  here,  a  horrible 
revival  of  phallic  worship  broke  out  and  was  with  difficulty 
suppressed  by  the  authorities.  It  all  bore  the  Christian 
name,  and  the  scientific  no  less  than  the  sympathetic  ob- 
server would  concede  its  profound  religiousness  and  poten- 
tial social  power.  We  were  all  digged  from  this  same  pit 
and  under  the  cruder  emotions  our  boasted  veneer  of  civili- 
zation dissolves  into  the  primitive.  If  the  Georgia  coast 
negro  puts  rice  into  the  grave  for  ghosts  to  eat,  we  put 
flowers  there  —  for  ghosts  to  smell !  Each  of  us  has  for- 
gotten why  our  ancestors  taught  us  these  ways.  The  negro 
is  only  a  little  nearer  the  savage.  Yet  when,  as  in  the 
black  counties  and  under  the  increasing  tendency  of  race 
segregation,  American  civilization  has  deserted  him,  his 
gains  hang  in  a  trembling  balance.  We  need  all  the 
resources  of  civilization  to  keep  us  up  to  our  standard 
of  life.  He  needs  them  to  keep  him  up  to  and  raise  him 
above  his. 

The  Dorchester  Academy  has  about  forty  acres  of  land, 
some  two  hundred  and  fifty  pupils,  a  dozen  teachers,  and 

[235] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

a  very  good  equipment  of  buildings.  There  is  an  excellent 
eight-room  schoolhouse,  a  large  girls'  dormitory,  and  a 
church  ministered  to  by  a  colored  pastor.  It  has  a  boys' 
dormitory,  a  two-story  woodworking  shop,  a  small  black- 
smith shop,  a  bricklaying  shed,  a  modest  printing-office, 
a  gasoline  engine  and  wood-saw,  and  a  well-equipped  laun- 
dry, besides  a  barn  with  stock  and  farm  implements,  and 
a  magnificent  flowing  well,  furnishing  ample  water  supply. 
There  are  special  teachers  for  agriculture,  farm  mechan- 
ics, domestic  science,  sewing,  and  dressmaking.  Only 
twenty-three  pupils  are  in  the  secondary  grades,  but  the 
work  which  they  do  is  sufficient  and  worthy.  This  descrip- 
tion, with  greater  or  less  variation,  would  fit  Gloucester 
School,  Cappahosic,  Virginia ;  Lincoln  Academy,  Kings 
Mountain,  North  Carolina ;  Brewer  Normal  School,  Green- 
wood, South  Carolina;  Fessenden  Academy,  Fessenden, 
Florida;  and  Lincoln  Normal,  Marion,  Alabama.  The 
presence  of  schools  of  this  type  is  significantly  lacking  in 
the  states  of  Mississippi,  Arkansas,  and  Louisiana.  Yet 
of  the  fifty-five  counties  in  America  with  a  negro  popula- 
tion of  over  75  per  cent,  thirty-four  are  in  these  very 
states.  This  is  the  most  notable  gap  in  the  Association's 
system  of  schools,  and  the  lack  of  other  opportunities  for 
the  overwhelming  black  masses  of  the  lower  Mississippi 
valley  make  it  the  more  unfortunate.  If  I  had  $150,000 
for  negro  education,  I  would  first  of  all  found  an  agri- 
cultural high  school  in  one  of  the  blackest  counties  in 
each  of  these  three  states. 


236  J 


PRiMAuy  Grade,  Andersonvili.e,  Ga. 


Graduating  Class,  Straight  University,  New  Orleans 


VIII.    TYPICAL   MISSIONARY 
ACTIVITIES   (continued) 

CLASSIFICATION   OF   INSTITUTIONS 
E.    GirW  Semmaries 

THIS  Is  an  interesting  and  significant  variation  from 
the  prevailing  types  of  schools.  The  American 
Missionary  Association  has  few  such  institutions, 
but  it  has  been  a  favorite  type  with  several  of  the  North- 
ern denominations. 

The  considerations  which  have  led  to  the  establishment 
of  girls'  seminaries  are  chiefly  three.     They  are,  in  the 

r^   o      -1        first  place,  in  line  with  the  Southern  educa- 
Why  Special  f         ^  ,  .  ,      ,  ^      , 

Schools  for  tional  tradition  which  the  more  select  groups 

Negro  Girls  ^f  negroes  inherit.  Coeducation  in  the 
South  was  a  Northern  innovation,  which  on  the  whole  has 
justified  itself  as  the  prevailing  policy  of  the  negro 
school;  but  the  more  careful  parents,  especially  those 
having  some  social  pretensions,  frequently  demanded  sep- 
arate schools  for  the  training  of  their  daughters.  Beyond 
this  there  is  very  real  and  urgent  motive  in  the  moral 
peril  of  cultured  negro  girls  at  the  hands,  primarily,  of 
white  men,  but  also  from  men  of  their  own  race.  The 
more  refined  and  ladylike  the  girl,  the  more  constant  and 
insidious  is  the  attack.  No  social  tradition  protects  her 
virtue;  no  social  obloquy  punishes  its  despoiler.  This 
is  the  chief  tragedy  of  the  race  situation.  Now,  however 
great  the  peril,  it  must  be  met  on  the  whole  by  the  strength- 
ening of  character  —  not  by  isolation  and  the  erection 
of  arbitrary  safeguards.     Yet  there  are  numerous  specific 

[237] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

cases  where  considerations  of  moral  safety  make  the  policy 
of  separate  schools  for  girls  wise.  The  strangest  aspect 
of  the  situation  is  that  not  infrequently  these  schools  are 
chiefly  filled  by  the  daughters  of  white  men.  The  banker, 
the  postmaster,  and  the  leading  merchant  frequently  show 
both  a  sense  of  responsibility  and  parental  regard  for  the 
children  of  their  illegitimate  black  families.  Almost  any 
one  of  our  institutions  could  tell  a  series  of  curious  and 
thrilling  tales  on  this  point.  Conscience  frequently  tries 
to  square  itself  by  giving  the  daughter  a  protection  which 
the  mother  did  not  have.  Finally,  girls'  schools  have  been 
found  to  furnish  the  most  simple  and  natural  conditions 
for  the  training  of  home-makers.  Not  excessive  labora- 
tory methods  remote  from  the  actual  conditions  of  house- 
keeping, but  the  daily  round  of  duties  in  a  family  of 
moderate  size  gives  the  most  practical  training  in  the  do- 
mestic arts.  The  Association  has  always  given  such 
training  a  large  place  in  the  education  of  the  negro  girl. 

Its  ulterior  object  has  not  been  that  which  chiefly  com- 
mends domestic  training  to  the  unthinking,  the  prepara- 
Trainin"  the  tion,  namely,  of  household  servants.  It  is  the 
Mothers  of  the  negro  home  which  has  been  primarily  in 
^^^^  view  —  the  preparation  of  the  girl  for  wife- 

hood and  motherhood.  The  deepest  need  of  the  race  has 
been  here,  a  need  compared  with  which  the  preparation 
of  cooks  and  domestics  is  insignificant.  The  moral  peril 
of  domestic  service  compared  with  that  of  other  callings 
open  to  women  is  a  commonplace  of  sociological  knowl- 
edge, and  is  made  tenfold  more  deadly  by  the  prevailing 
attitude  of  the  South  toward  the  negro  women,  which  we 
have  just  discussed.  The  hesitancy  of  some  of  our  schools 
to  send  out  carefully  trained  girls  to  almost  certain  insult 
and  danger  will  at  least  be  understood.     At  the  same  time 

[238] 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 

it  is  recognized  that  a  poor  race  must  learn  to  endure  the 
moral  risks  involved  in  making  a  living,  and  it  has  been 
inculcated  both  by  precept  and  example  that  efficient  do- 
mestic service  is  honorable.  The  girls'  schools  have  sent 
out  a  due  proportion  of  competent  servants  and  conse- 
quently have  been  especially  favored  by  Southern  com- 
munities. 

Each  of  these  considerations  was  consciously  present 
in  the  estabhshment  of  Allen  Normal  School  at  Thomas- 
A  Typical  ville,   Georgia.      Shamed   by   the   incendiary 

School:  Allen  destruction  of  the  Association's  school  in  a 
Normal  neighboring   town,   a   group   of  the  leading 

citizens  of  Thomasville  invited  it  to  their  community. 
They  gave  it  both  welcome  and  substantial  financial  sup- 
port. Accordingly,  in  the  founding  of  the  school,  the  pre- 
vailing Southern  idea  of  separate  education  for  girls  was 
followed.  The  institution  was  deliberately  located  apart 
from  the  negro  quarters  where  a  little  school  had  pre- 
viously been  maintained,  and  sought  privacy  on  a  consid- 
erable tract  of  land  in  the  outskirts  of  the  city.  Around 
it  there  developed  a  distinctly  residential  district  for 
negroes,  a  region  of  neatly  painted  cottages,  of  well-kept 
fences,  and  flower  gardens.  The  whole  result  was  just 
such  a  select  school  as  one  might  wish  for  his  own  daugh- 
ter. Besides  these  provisions  for  protection  and  intensive 
Christian  education,  facilities  were  definitely  planned  for 
training  in  the  household  arts.  Full  realization  of  the 
ideal,  however,  was  long  delayed  for  lack  of  means.  Besides 
the  dormitory  building  there  was  but  a  two-room  school- 
house,  housing  four  grades.  The  rest  of  the  work  of  the 
school  had  to  go  on  in  the  dormitory.  This  meant  the  in- 
vasion of  children,  noise,  dust,  and  germs.  The  upper 
classes  had  to  recite  in  teachers'  bedrooms.     The    much 

[239] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

desired  systematic  training,  both  in  practise  teaching  and 
in  household  science  was  well-nigh  impossible.  But  now, 
at  length,  a  new  schoolhouse  has  just  been  erected,  and 
teachers  are  under  appointment  not  only  for  sewing  and 
domestic  science  instruction,  but  also  for  practical  gar- 
dening and  fruit  growing.  Thus  a  fine,  wholesome,  well- 
ordered  institution  is  at  length  able  to  realize  its  ideal. 

There  would  be  many  more  such  institutions  but  for  the 
fact  that  they  are  disproportionately  expensive.  It  costs 
Why  not  more  more  relatively  to  run  a  small  school  than  a 
of  this  Type?  large  one.  The  ideal  of  intensive  culture 
in  a  closely  associated  Christian  household  does  not  per- 
mit of  an  institution  of  economical  size.  The  Association 
is  committed  to  the  policy  of  the  diffusion  of  opportunity, 
hence  cannot  emphasize  the  more  expensive  types  of 
schools.  Yet  no  one  can  learn  the  life  of  a  seminary  for 
negro  girls  without  profoundly  wishing  that  its  type 
might  increase.  Nowhere  does  gracious  and  effective 
womanhood  have  more  immediate  and  potent  influence  over 
earnest  and  receptive  youth,  and  the  results  show  in  the 
aspirations  and  successful  struggle  of  many  a  negro  girl, 
—  one  of  those  future  mothers  of  the  race  who  are  the 
source  of  all  purity  and  all  defilement. 

F.     Colleges  and  Universities 

The  negro  higher  institution  is  chiefly  something  else. 
With  the  possible  exception  of  Howard  University  at 
mi    lyr  Washington  (a  school  subsidized  by  the  Fed- 

" College"  eral  government),  there   is  no   one  of  them 

chiefly  Non-  which  has  not  the  bulk  of  its  resources,  the 
collegiate  majority  of  its  teaching  force,  and  the  larger 

proportion  of  its  plant  engaged  in  work  which  does  not 

[240] 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 


go  beyond  secondary  grade.     The  following  table  states 
the  case  for  representative  institutions  in  1908 : 


COLLEGE 
STUDENTS 


Fisk    .    . 
Talladega 
Atlanta  . 
Tougaloo 

Howard 


124 

29 

51 

6 

75 
190' 


This  showing  is  wholly  creditable  to  them,  for  it  proves 
that,  whatever  their  intentions,  in  actual  practise  they 
have  served  conditions  rather  than  theories.  They  have 
turned  their  faces  "  home  to  the  instant  need  of  things," 
and  have  undertaken  the  work  most  fundamental  for  the 
race.  If,  however,  undeceived  by  names  and  titles,  one 
studies  this  group  of  institutions  in  its  concrete  variety, 
he  will  discover  it  to  be  a  unique  and  vital  part  of  American 
education. 

The  older  of  the  negro  colleges,  established  soon  after 
the  war,  were  invariably  the  offspring  of  Northern  philan- 
Ideal  and  thropy  under  Christian  impulse,  and  are  still 

History  chiefly  supported  and  controlled  by  boards 

of  trust  representing  the  great  denominations.  From 
the  very  beginning  these  Boards  have  frequently  included 
representative  white  Southerners  and  sometimes  associated 
them  with  negroes  as  fellow  trustees.  Some  of  this  group 
'  In  teachers'  professional  course  of  collegiate  rank. 


16 


[241 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

have  come  to  be  independent  of  the  agencies  which  founded 
them  and  others  are  on  the  way  toward  it.  Later,  the  ris- 
ing tide  of  negro  race-consciousness  brought  into  being 
other  institutions  ambitious  to  attain  college  rank.  As 
a  group  they  have  been  narrowly  sectarian,  miserably 
equipped,  and  of  low  educational  standard,  yet  some  of 
them  have  made  real  progress  and  are  yet  to  be  counted 
among  the  genuinely  higher  institutions.  They  have 
shared  the  ideals,  at  least,  of  the  older  group. 

Starting  with  the  purpose  of  demonstrating  to  the  world 
the  intellectual  capacity  of  the  negro  race,  the  higher  in- 
stitutions have  all  found  their  chief  motive  in  the  conviction 
that  the  strategy  of  race  development  demands  the  prepa- 
ration of  disciplined  leaders.  To  this  end  most  of  them 
originally  had  to  begin  with  the  primary  school;  yet  the 
end  was  never  forgotten,  and  by  virtue  of  it  —  in  spite 
of  their  continued  occupation  with  elementary  and  second- 
ary education  —  they  are  not  unworthy  to  be  reckoned  as 
colleges  in  the  making. 

In  external  equipment  the  better  negro  colleges  equal 
many  well-known  and  representative  Western  institutions. 
.  Fisk,  for  example,  has  a  $100,000  dormitory 

sung  into  existence  by  the  world-tours  of  her 
famous  Jubilee  singers.  A  visit  to  the  American  Mis- 
sionary Association  colleges  would  discover  a  notable 
group  of  chapel  buildings,  architecturally  impressive  and 
equipped  with  all  the  accessories  of  dignified  religious  ser- 
vices, including  excellent  pipe-organs,  the  one  at  Talladega 
being  the  gift  of  alumni.  I  recall  a  good  many  classrooms 
better  lighted  and  furnished  than  some  in  which  I  have  sat 
at  old  Harvard.  Mr.  Carnegie's  inclusive  beneficence  has 
given  numerous  artistic  and  modern  libraries  to  negro  in- 
stitutions.    Facilities  for  adequate  science  work  have  been 

[242] 


SWAYNE  Hai.1.,  TAI.I.AUKdA  Coi.I.EGE  ChASE    HaLI.,  FiSK    UnIVERSITV 


Jubilee  Hall,  Fisk  Umversitv     DeFokest  Ciiai'el,  Tali, ADEiiA  College 


Striebv  Hall,  Tougaloo  Universitv    Beard  H  all,  Tougaloo  Universitv 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 

somewhat  lacking,  but  in  its  new  Chase  Hall,  Fisk  has  a 
science  building  which  for  architecture  and  equipment 
would  be  envied  by  the  average  college.  One  of  the  char- 
acteristic buildings  of  Northern  institutions  is  notably 
lacking,  namely,  the  gymnasium.  But  in  lieu  of  that  the 
negro  college  is  likely  to  have  industrial  shops  and  farm- 
lands, which  some  will  think  a  profitable  exchange. 
Atlanta  University  has  a  splendid  model  school  building  — 
the  gift  of  George  Foster  Peabody  —  and  other  schools 
have  less  pretentious  special  quarters  for  the  training  of 
teachers.  Talladega  College,  located  in  the  country,  has 
a  plant  worth  $250,000,  while  that  of  Fisk,  by  reason  of 
its  greater  urban  values,  is  estimated  at  some  half  a  million. 

In  the  forty  years  and  more  of  their  history  no  negro 
college  has  been  able  to  acquire  even  a  fraction  of  the 
Endowment  necessary  endowment  for  its  support.  Every 
and  Support  one  must  annually  beg  the  greater  portion 
of  its  running  expenses.  In  other  words,  the  utmost  that 
Northern  philanthropy  has  done  has  not  been  sufficient  to 
put  a  single  school  upon  its  feet.  Talladega  leads  with  an 
endowment  of  some  $160,000,  Atlanta  reports  $72,000, 
and  Fisk  about  $70,000.  The  preoccupation  of  philan- 
thropy in  recent  years  with  industrial  education  has  made 
the  financial  problem  of  the  college  well-nigh  desperate. 
Tuitions  are  but  one-third  or  one-half  those  charged  by 
the  more  modest  Northern  schools.  The  Missionary  Board 
remains  the  chief  source  of  supply. 

The  older  and  better  known  negro  colleges,  especially 

those  controlled  from  the  North,  draw  students  from  very 

.  wide  areas.     A  surprising  number  of  North- 

Constituency  „       J.1,      i?  n        1  •         r   4-1,  • 

ern   negroes   prefer   the   tellowsliip    of    their 

own  race  to  the  educational  privileges  of  the  famous  insti- 
tutions open  to  them  at  their  own  doors.     The  systematic 

[243] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

provision  of  opportunities  for  students  to  support  them- 
selves, in  part  by  manual  labor,  and  the  development  of  stu- 
dent aid  funds  have  made  it  possible  for  these  schools  to 
be  attended  by  young  people  from  all  social  classes.  At 
the  same  time,  the  opportunities  of  higher  education  are  in 
their  very  nature  selective,  and  the  negro  college  student, 
like  the  white,  is  doubtless  above  the  average  of  his  people 
in  natural  capacity.  Probably  there  is  a  disproportionate 
number  of  mulattoes  among  them.  The  colleges,  though 
young,  tend  to  develop  distinctive  characteristics,  as  do 
all  vital  institutions.  The  familiar  visitor  soon  learns  to 
sense  the  institutional  tone  and  atmosphere.  Sometimes 
it  tends  toward  social  exclusiveness  and  educational  dis- 
play; sometimes  toward  solid  results.  But  probably 
from  no  group  of  American  colleges  are  the  regrettable 
features  so  largely  absent. 

Christian  education  as  interpreted  by  the  able  and  de- 
voted men  and  women  who  set  the  standard  and  gave  the 

_,.    .  ,.  tone    to    the    better    nes;ro    colleges,    meant 

Discipline  ,  i      «>       •  ^ 

thoroughgomg  and  enective  moral  control. 

Discipline  is  therefore  a  sterner  reality  in  these  schools 
than  in  the  average  American  college.  The  going  and 
coming  of  students  is  under  strict  limitations.  The  over- 
sight of  girls  is  especially  conscientious  and  watchful. 
Because  the  negro  as  a  race  is  unused  to  the  strain  of 
prolonged  intellectual  labor  and  also  because  many  students 
are  so  poor  as  to  be  underfed,  the  care  of  health  becomes 
a  peculiarly  insistent  problem,  and  instruction  in  personal 
hygiene  a  fundamental  part  of  college  education.  From 
the  earliest  times  it  has  been  a  tradition  that  every  student 
should  give  at  least  an  hour  of  manual  labor  in  addition 
to  all  other  payments  toward  the  cost  of  his  education. 
This  takes  the  form  of  dining-room  and  dormitory  work 

[244] 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 

for  girls  and  industrial  and  agricultural  work  for  boys, 
while  a  few  of  both  sexes  are  employed  in  clerical  capaci- 
ties. The  strict  regimentation  of  negro  college  life  im- 
presses every  observer.  Yet  its  grounds  are  only  partly 
racial.  It  is  chiefly  not  because  the  students  are  negroes 
but  because  they  are  mostly  in  elementary  and  secondary 
grades.  I  question  whether  the  negro  student  of  collegiate 
development  requires  especial  severity  of  discipline. 

College  life  from  the  student  standpoint  has  many  fea- 
tures in  common  with  those  of  typical  institutions.  We 
have  noted  the  unique  insistence  on  manual 
labor.  Naturally  the  constituency  of  the 
negro  college  is  poorer  than  that  of  the  average  American 
school.  This  means  a  larger  proportion  of  students  who 
are  working  their  way.  There  is  probably,  therefore,  less 
surplus  energy  to  be  worked  off  by  student  devices.  Social 
functions,  however,  are  frequent  and  varied.  A  careful  and 
rational  control  of  the  relations  of  the  sexes  is  always 
maintained.  While  coeducation  is  the  rule  a  few  of  the 
higher  institutions  have  departed  from  it.  Athletics  are 
moderately  developed  and  the  "  big "  football  game  be- 
tween negro  universities  has  most  of  the  marks  of  similar 
occasions  in  the  North.  The  culture  agencies  of  college 
life  are  frequently  superior.  Lectures  and  literary  socie- 
ties flourish.  Musical  organizations  have  a  unique  place 
and  get  magnificent  results  from  the  negro's  rare  gifts  in 
this  direction.  "  If  you  were  a  negro,"  wrote  an  enthu- 
siastic visitor,  "  your  college  songs  would  be  written  by  a 
real  poet,  their  music  composed  by  a  genius  and  sung  by 
a  highly  trained  student  body  whose  rendering  would  do 
credit  to  the  Handel  and  Haydn  Club."  The  student  press 
has  an  extensive  development  made  possible  by  the  frequent 
presence  of  printing  as  part  of  the  industrial  curriculum. 

[245] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

One  familiar  phase  of  white  student  hfe  is  almost  totally 
absent  in  the  negro  colleges,  namely,  the  playing  of  law- 
less and  destructive  pranks.  Perhaps  it  would  be  equally 
so  from  the  Northern  college  if  the  student  knew  that  his 
exploits  would  be  rewarded  with  lynching  rather  than 
laughter. 

The  educational  standards  of  the  negro  colleges  are 
high  rather  than  broad.  Most  of  them  have  narrow  and 
Educational  traditional  curricula,  and  probably  not  one 
Standard  and  absolutely  reaches  the  standard  of  either  the 
Achievement  Northern  or  Southern  college  associations 
as  to  entrance  requirements,  teaching  force  exclusively 
given  to  college  instruction,  or  developed  course  of 
study.  This  is  simply  the  story  of  the  American  college  in 
its  beginning  in  all  sections.  The  negro  institutions  have 
had  a  rare  measure  of  that  splendid  personality  and  teach- 
ing ability  which  supplies  a  genuinely  higher  education 
in  schools  of  small  resources.  Much  of  the  work  attempted 
has  been  of  superior  quality.  Colleges  no  better  developed 
have  educated  the  majority  of  eminent  Americans.  I  hap- 
pen to  have  gone  immediately  from  a  chair  of  psychology 
in  a  reputable  Western  college  to  the  inspection  of  negro 
college  work.  I  found  standard  texts  in  use.  I  heard 
classes  and  sometimes  set  examination  questions.  The  re- 
sults were  up  to  the  average  of  student  attainment  as  I 
know  it  in  the  white  schools,  and  in  individual  cases  were 
truly  remarkable.  Graduates  of  these  colleges  have  now 
for  many  years  gone  in  considerable  numbers  to  the  great 
Northern  universities  for  advanced  work.  The  represen- 
tative Fisk  and  Talladega  graduate  can  make  the  junior 
year  in  Yale  or  the  senior  year  in  representative  colleges 
of  the  IVIiddle  States.  The  notable  careers  of  exceptional 
negroes  in   some  of  the  most  famous   seats   of  American 

[246] 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 


learning  are  a  splendid  revelation  of  the  capacity  of  picked 
men  of  that  race  in  competition  with  picked  men  of  ours. 
Nor  is  it  always  the  extraordinary  negro  who  comes 
North.  Oberlin  has  seen  a  full  seventh  of  her  students 
black.  The  average  negro  is  an  average  student  in  the 
Hues  of  his  reasonable  preparation.  For  the  more  accu- 
rate scientific  work  and  for  technical  courses  his  schools 
have  not  hitherto  been  able  to  fit  him. 

The  checking  of  Northern  beneficence  toward  the  negro 
college  is  resulting  in  their  rigorous  sifting.  The  future 
Future  of  the  will  show  its  results  in  two  directions :  first, 
Negro  CoUege  in  the  acceptance  of  the  secondary  role  by 
many  ambitious  schools  which  it  is  neither  strategic  nor 
economical  to  develop  as  colleges.  Precisely  this  thing  is 
taking  place  among  the  white  schools  of  the  South,  and  is 
being  practised  by  the  American  Missionary  Association 
toward  its  higher  institutions.  Second,  in  the  achievement 
of  real  university  standards  and  breadth  along  distinct 
lines  by  a  small  group  of  the  best  schools.  The  faith  of 
their  founders  providentially  wrote  charters  calhng  for 
many-sided  institutions.  The  needs  of  the  race  have  re- 
quired broad  foundations,  and  splendid  superstructures 
will  yet  be  built.  Fisk,  Atlanta,  Talladega,  Tougaloo  and 
others  will  be  able  to  raise  their  many  departments  of 
speciaHzed  instruction  to  the  highest  grade  and  will  thus 
justify  the  name  university. 

G.    Specialized  Instruction 

Specialization  in  the  negro  college  has  not  been  able  to 
wait  upon  theoretically  complete  preparation  in  its  stu- 
dents. The  manifold  practical  needs  of  the  race  have  been 
too  urgent.     They  have  compelled  the  use  of  imperfectly 

[247] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

trained  leaders.  Technical  and  professional  courses,  there- 
fore, have  been  generally  parallel  to  or  assimilated  with 
secondary  and  college  studies. 

Theological.  —  Some  of  the  most  splendid  and  conse- 
crated personalities  ever  engaged  in  negro  education  — 
including  a  heroic  group  of  Southern  men  —  have  given 
themselves  to  the  task  of  training  ministers ;  and  with 
notable  results.  Probably  a  greater  proportion  of  negroes 
of  first-class  ability  have  gone  into  the  ministry  during  the 
last  generation  than  of  whites.  I  can  recall  recitations  of 
negro  classes  in  systematic  theology  and  in  modern  social 
problems  which  compared  favorably  with  those  of  Northern 
seminaries.  A  large  proportion  of  the  students,  however, 
are  mature  men  —  working  pastors  who  recognize  their 
own  deficiencies  and  are  seeking  to  remedy  them.  Their 
efforts  by  no  means  merit  contempt.  A  goodly  proportion 
of  students  are  training  for  missionary  service  in  Africa, 
for  the  redeeming  of  the  mother  continent  is  a  growing 
aspiration  of  the  American  negro  and  is  one  of  his  unique 
spiritual  assets.  Instruction  is  directly  adapted  to  racial 
needs.  Teaching  of  Hebrew  and  Greek  is  the  exception. 
The  core  of  theological  training  consists  in  study  of  the 
Enghsh  Bible  and  practical  methods  of  religious  work. 
The  exceptional  student  who  needs  more  can  generally  be 
helped  on  to  a  Northern  divinity  school.  The  theological 
departments  of  the  American  Missionary  Association  have 
always  been  recognized  as  entirely  non-sectarian ;  and 
however  intense  the  denominational  feeling  of  the  negro 
churches,  they  have  recognized  the  superior  training  of 
the  Association's  schools,  and  have  been  willing  to  trust 
their  religious  breadth.  For  example,  take  the  history 
of  the  Talladega  Theological  Seminary:  It  has  grad- 
uated and  sent  into  the  ministry  sixty-five  men.     Of  this 

[248] 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 

number  one-fourth  have  served  or  are  serving  other  than 
Congregational  peoples;  five  as  pastors  of  Baptist 
churches,  two  as  presidents  of  Baptist  colleges,  six  in  the 
Methodist  communion  —  one  being  dean  of  a  theological 
seminary,  and  another  trustee  of  a  college,  while  three  be- 
came Presbyterian  pastors.  Sixteen  students  were  enrolled 
in  the  Seminary  during  the  year  just  closed.  Of  this  num' 
ber  one-fourth  were  pastors  of  local  Methodist  and  Baptist 
churches,  fitting  themselves  for  better  service  in  their  con- 
gregations. And  none  are  more  emphatic  in  their  commen- 
dation of  the  work  of  the  Seminary  than  these  men.  Indeed 
many  representative  men  of  these  dominant  negro  churches 
have  had  their  training  in  it. 

Pedagogical.  —  The  majority  of  secondary  institutions 
for  negroes  offer  their  graduates  special  work  in  prepara- 
tion for  teachers'  examinations.  Only  a  few  of  the  better 
schools,  however,  have  made  a  real  beginning  in  the  direc- 
tion of  advanced  professional  courses.  The  presence  of 
elementary  schools  in  most  of  them  affords  opportunity  for 
active  apprenticeship.  The  plan  most  in  vogue  is  to  follow 
a  three  years'  general  secondary  course  with  two  years  of 
intensive  study  of  teaching  methods  and  school  adminis- 
tration, including  a  large  amount  of  practise  teaching. 
Howard  University  has  a  still  more  elaborate  and  exten- 
sive course. 

Domestic  Science  Training. —  Beyond  the  required  daily 
household  service  from  all  women  students  in  connection 
with  school  dormitories  and  boarding  departments,  there 
has  recently  been  an  extensive  introduction  of  facilities  for 
a  more  scientific  study  of  home-making  in  all  its  aspects. 
Many  domestic  science  laboratories  have  been  furnished. 
Model  homes,  for .  which  completely  equipped  buildings 
have  been  provided,  are  a  distinctive  feature  of  this  train- 

[249] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

ing  in  several  of  the  American  Missionary  Association 
schools.  In  them  senior  girls  in  all  courses  are  given  a 
finishing-off  in  housework  and  management  just  before 
their  final  going  out  into  active  life.  Under  careful  super- 
vision they  keep  house  for  themselves  for  a  series  of  weeks, 
each  doing  in  turn  the  whole  round  of  necessary  work  from 
scrubbing  and  laundering  to  planning  for  and  presiding 
as  hostess  at  a  course  dinner. 

Nursing.  —  In  connection  with  the  larger  schools  daily 
health  inspections  by  regular  officers  and  school  hospitals 
for  the  care  of  the  sick  have  been  provided.  The  practical 
work  of  these  has  been  expanded  into  a  number  of  incipient 
professional  courses  for  nurses.  This  profession  furnishes 
one  of  the  best  opportunities  to  the  negro  self-supporting 
woman,  the  trained  colored  nurse  having  almost  an  un- 
limited field  among  the  white  people  of  the  South.  The 
best  of  these  courses  are  approximating  their  standards 
to  those  of  similar  ones  in  the  North,  and  extensive  hospital 
practise  is  in  some  cases  possible.  Talladega  College  has 
been  able  to  unite  with  the  community  in  the  establishment 
of  a  hospital  receiving  both  students  and  out-patients, 
an  ample  building  for  which  is  in  process  of  erection. 

Trades  Instruction.  —  Missionary  schools  in  the  main 
have  sharply  differentiated  themselves  from  those  giving 
trades-instruction.  They  have  insisted  upon  the  necessity 
of  general  intelligence  to  make  special  skill  practically 
effective,  and  have  devised  their  industrial  work  as  a  part 
of  general  education  rather  than  as  trades-apprenticeship, 
with  immediate  view  to  a  hvelihood.  Many  of  the  trades 
have  indeed  been  in  actual  operation  in  connection  with 
the  building  up  and  care  of  the  plants  of  the  larger  insti- 
tutions and  hundreds  of  students  have  thereby  been  enabled 
to   work   their  way   through    school.      A    few    missionary 

[250] 


CorroN  Picking  on  School  Farm 
Brewer  Normal  School,  Greenwood,  S.  C. 


FOOTHAI.I.   TeaJI 

Burrell  Normal  Institute,  Florence,  Ala. 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 

schools  which  have  large  industrial  equipment,  like  Tou- 
galoo  University  and  the  J.  K.  Brick  School,  North  Caro- 
lina, have  allowed  a  small  number  of  pupils  annually  to  take 
a  minimum  of  academic  work  and  to  specialize  through  a 
series  of  years  in  a  trade,  receiving  a  diploma  when  it  has 
been  satisfactorily  mastered.  Courses  in  dressmaking, 
milhnery,  cooking,  blacksmithing,  carpentry,  brick- 
masonry,  and  stationary  engineering  have  thus  been  pro- 
vided. In  almost  every  school  the  various  lines  of  repair 
are  assigned  to  students  who  are  working  for  their  educa- 
tion and  who  in  time  become  practically  expert  along  va- 
rious lines.  In  the  forty  or  fifty  such  institutions  of  the 
American  Missionary  Association  hundreds  of  students 
are  thus  receiving  actual  training  in  the  trades.  Thus  a 
system  of  apprenticeship  has  grown  up,  antedating  and 
still  rivaling  the  work  of  Hampton  and  Tuskegee. 

Agricultural.  —  The  Federal  government  will  not  draw 
the  color-line  in  education.  The  Southern  states,  therefore, 
in  order  to  receive  national  appropriations  for  white  agri- 
cultural colleges,  have  had  to  establish  parallel  institutions 
for  negroes.  Aiming  as  these  do  at  agricultural  training 
without  thought  for  general  culture,  their  constituencies 
have  naturally  been  very  crude ;  their  equipments  have  been 
meager  as  well  and  the  grade  of  work  correspondingly 
low.  Yet  if  the  destiny  of  the  negro  is  to  be  worked  out 
close  to  the  soil,  there  is  critical  need  of  a  trained  rural 
leadership,  such  as  the  state  schools  do  not  give.  The  fol- 
lowing from  the  Tougaloo  University  catalogue  indicates 
the  range  of  such  practical  training  in  a  well-equipped 
school : 

The  attention  paid  to  agriculture  has  been  in- 
creased. Practical  farm  operations  have  been  steadily 
carried  on.     The  plantation  now  produces  nearly  all 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

the  meat,  milk,  and  vegetables  for  the  boarding  de- 
partment, which  averages  over  two  hundred,  besides 
what  is  shipped  to  market.  Eighty  to  a  hundred  cattle, 
seventy  to  eighty  sheep,  about  the  same  number  of 
swine,  are  yearly  raised,  the  animals  all  being  of  good 
breeds.  About  a  thousand  bushels  of  sweet  potatoes, 
the  same  of  corn,  one  hundred  tons  of  hay,  cane  enough 
for  many  barrels  of  molasses,  made  on  the  place  in 
the  open  kettle  fashion,  cotton  enough  to  show  what 
can  be  done  by  intensive  methods  in  producing  two 
or  more  bales  to  the  acre,  are  yearly  raised.  Several 
acres  of  strawberries,  two  hundred  apple  and  two 
thousand  peach  trees  provide  fruit  for  table  use,  pre- 
serving, and  shipping.  Students  do  the  work  and  the 
practical  experience  is  of  the  highest  value.  Besides 
this  field  work  there  is  school-room  work  in  agricul- 
ture, by  a  special  instructor,  in  the  last  grammar  and 
first  normal  classes,  and  to  special  students  in  the 
higher  grades.  Lectures  are  also  given  regularly  to 
all  the  grades. 

The  central  idea  is  that  of  uniting  culture  and  high 
ideals  of  life  with  special  skill  for  the  betterment  of  rural 
conditions.  Fisk  has  been  a  pioneer  in  the  introduction  of 
agricultural  courses  of  college  rank  into  its  curriculum 
and  Talladega  is  following  with  the  appointment  of  a  pro- 
fessor of  scientific  agriculture. 

Productive  Scholarship. — A  small  but  creditable  amount 
of  original  work  of  genuine  scientific  merit  has  been  done 
in  a  few  institutions  —  notably  in  negro  history  and  so- 
ciology at  Atlanta  University  under  Dr.  DuBois,  and  in 
negro  music  at  Fisk;  while  a  large  and  distinguished 
group  of  negro  professors  has  contributed  to  the  scholarly 
as  well  as  to  the  popular  discussion  of  the  race  problem 
in  many  aspects. 

[252] 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 


rV.    THE  OUTREACH  OF  THE  MISSION  SCHOOLS 

No  mission  school  is  merely  a  school;  all  are  definitely 
intended  centers  of  uplifting  influence  upon  their  com- 
munities. The  policy  of  the  diffusion  of  the  educational 
opportunity  means  also  the  multiplication  of  such  centers 
of  moral  life.  The  American  Missionary  Association 
schools  constitute  social  settlements  for  some  sixty  negro 
communities.  No  concentration  of  equipment  and  endow- 
ment upon  great  mass  schools  can  match  this  wealth  of 
social  ministration. 

In  its  least  developed  form,  the  mission  school  has  a  de- 
finitely parochial  idea ;  that  is  to  say,  it  has  felt  bound  to 
Parochial  ^^J  *°  improve  its  environment.    The  monthly 

Responsibility  report  of  each  teacher  has  for  forty  years 
and  Work  asked,    "  How    many    calls    have    you    made 

on  pupils  ?  "  "  What  community  enterprises  have  you  par- 
ticipated in.f'  "  Classroom  relations  have  been  regarded 
merely  as  the  beginning  of  missionary  service.  Thus  one 
of  the  most  exploited  ideas  of  a  sociologizing  age,  "  the 
school  a  social  center,"  is  an  original  and  long-practised 
principle  of  the  negro  schools.  The  relations  between  them 
and  the  home  have  been  most  intimate.  At  their  beginning, 
especially,  many  adults  were  enrolled  as  primary  pupils 
and  the  grown-up  negro  has  not  felt  aloof  from  the  school 
as  the  average  citizen  does.  His  habit  of  clinging  to  his 
white  folks  has  made  the  ties  more  binding.  Thus  mothers' 
meetings,  sewing  classes,  talks  on  sanitation  and  care  of 
children,  besides  manifold  religious  activities  are  among 
the  earliest  commonplaces  of  missionary  method;  and, 
however  innocent  of  all  pretensions,  they  have  been  carried 
on  with  sure  common  sense  and  an  instinct  for  practical 

[253] 


CHRISTIAN    EECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

results  which  have  been  an  immeasurable  tonic  to  the  negro 
race. 

In  an  earlier  chapter  was  noted  one   of  the  two  vast 
movements  of  negro  population,  namely,  that  from  coun- 
try to  city.     The  city  negro  is  a  new  thing 
tionofthe  under  the   sun.      Airica   had  no   cities,   nor 

Mission  School    had   the   old   South.      Such   aggregation    of 
to  Urban  population  as  it  had,  lacked  completely  the 

characteristics  of  modem  urban  life.  Five- 
sixths  of  this  population  is  still  rural,  more  people  being 
gathered  in  the  cities  of  Massachusetts  alone  than  in  the 
whole  South.  Yet  nowhere  is  the  movement  cityward  more 
rapid  or  the  social  changes  involved  therein  more  critical ; 
and  especially  for  the  negro.  All  this  means  that  the  mis- 
sionary institutions  must  adapt  new  methods  to  meet  the 
demands  of  the  changing  situation. 

Some  of  them  have  attacked  the  problems  of  recreation 
and  amusement.  The  playground  is  recognized  by  modern 
Recreation  and  education  as  one  of  the  most  fundamental  as- 
Amusement  pects  of  the  school.  President  Roosevelt 
told  the  recent  Mothers'  Congress,  "  A  school  without  a 
playground  is  no  school,"  and  Dr.  Woods  Hutchinson  said 
to  the  National  Playground  Association,  "  If  you  must 
omit  either  the  schoolhouse  or  the  playground,  omit  the 
schoolhouse."  Now  no  one  realized  forty  j^ears  ago  how 
marvelous  the  growth  of  Southern  cities  would  be.  The 
Association  had  no  money  to  buy  much  ground  and 
now  that  real  estate  is  high  and  the  vacant  lots  are  built 
upon,  our  pupils  are  forced  to  play  in  the  alleys  and 
streets  ;  and  the  case  is  desperate.  Almost  without  excep- 
tion our  city  schools  are  calling  for  play-places. 

Why  do  not  the  children  play  in  the  parks.?  Does  any 
one  think  that  they  are  equally  available  for  negro  and 

[2j4] 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 

Southern  Parks  white;  that  the  negro  boy  can  play  in  the 
closed  to  the  streets  as  the  white  boy  can ;  that  a  group 
J^egro  q£  colored  young  people  can  frequent  a  park 

for  pleasure,  or  a  gang  of  negro  workmen  rest  there 
in  the  shade;  that  a  black  mother  can  take  her  child  to  a 
park  for  respite  from  the  August  heat?  I  do  not  know  of 
a  city  in  the  South  where  this  would  be  allowed.  As  cities 
have  grown,  have  robbed  childhood  of  its  play  space,  and 
shut  man  out  of  immediate  contact  with  nature,  there  has 
been  practically  no  provision  made  for  the  negro  of  the 
substitutes  which  the  city  must  furnish  or  else  turn  inno- 
cent and  righteous  instincts  into  vicious  and  criminal 
channels.  Memphis  has  a  negro  reputed  to  be  a  million- 
aire, but  he  cannot  use  as  a  citizen  a  park  which  his  taxes 
help  to  sustain.  It  has  a  beautiful  tract  of  some  two  hun- 
dred acres  of  unimproved  park,  well  out  on  the  edge  of  the 
city,  but  we  could  not  get  permission  to  use  it  for  an  after- 
noon picnic  for  our  Le  Moyne  school,  even  under  most 
careful  supervision.  I  have  repeatedly  urged  city  teachers 
to  pay  more  attention  to  nature  study.  "  Tell  us  where 
we  will  be  allowed  to  take  the  children,"  they  have  invari- 
ably responded. 

Athletics  have  never  held  a  very  important  place  in  the 
missionary  scheme  of  education.  Recently,  however,  some 
of  our  younger  university  men  in  principal- 
ships  have  begun  to  develop  interest  in  scho- 
lastic games,  arguing  that  city  conditions  make  them 
necessary,  and  that  their  interest  tends  to  hold  boys  in 
the  school  to  the  completion  of  their  courses. 

The  negro's  pitiable  lack  of  wholesome   entertainment 
has  also  appealed  to  the  schools.    True,  in  large  cities  they 

^         .  are  coming  to  have  race  theaters,  the  influence 

Entertamments       /.      i  •  ,    •     i  i,         ,i         -n       -.7-  ■ 

01  which  IS  by  no  means  altogether  ill.     Yet 

[255] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

no  one  can  follow  the  year's  entertainment  course  at  such 
a  school  as  Avery  Institute,  Charleston,  or  Straight  Uni- 
versity, New  Orleans,  or  Le  Moyne  Institute,  Memphis, 
without  realizing  the  superiority  both  of  their  musical  and 
dramatic  occasions. 

Every  student  of  sociology  is  familiar  with  populations 
which  have  plenty  yet  starve  from  general  underfeeding. 
The  negro  does  not  always  have  enough  of 
any  sort  of  food  and  a  study  of  his  dietaries 
proves  that  he  rarely  has  enough  of  the  right  kind. 
Much  of  the  irritability  and  criminal  tendency  of  city 
populations  is  directly  traceable  to  this  fact.  Several  of 
our  schools,  therefore,  have  attacked  the  problem  of  the 
noon  lunch.  If  you  are  a  negro,  you  know,  your  mother 
is  out  at  work  and  cannot  get  dinner  for  you;  she  went 
early  and  had  not  time  to  put  up  your  lunch  in  the  morn- 
ing ;  so  you  have  been  in  the  habit  of  going  to  the  grocery- 
store  or  to  a  cheap  restaurant,  where  you  have  paid  more 
than  you  ought  for  things  that  are  not  good  for  you.  Some 
of  our  principals  have  realized  this  and  have  tried  to  meet 
the  situation.  Generally  the  work  is  planned  and  some- 
times it  is  done  by  the  department  of  Domestic  Science. 
A  wholesome  soup  or  stew  is  sold  for  five  cents,  and  per- 
haps an  appetizing  dessert  such  as  black  children  like. 
They  sit  down  at  decent  tables  and  learn  some  of  the  pro- 
prieties of  life  while  eating  proper  food  under  school 
supervision.  So  the  noon  hour  passes  without  the  demor- 
alization of  children  running  the  streets,  and  the  school 
shows  its  adaptability  to  the  new  demand  of  the  city. 

Few  of  our  city  schoolhouses  close  their  doors  when  the 
children  go  home  at  dusk.  Not  only  are  there  night  schools 
for  backward  adults,  for  mechanics  and  seamstresses,  or 
for  teachers  preparing  for  examinations,  but  frequently 

[2561 


P       imi. 


CoiJ.KGE    ClIOIK,   FiSK    UnivEKSITV 


College  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  Fisk  Univeksity 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 

community  libraries  and  reading-rooms  are  provided. 
The  most  extensive  enterprise  of  this  sort  is  the  Crossett 
Educational  Library  in  connection  with  the  Le  Moyne 
Extension  Institute,  Memphis,  Tennessee.     This  is  the 

^^'■^  branch  pubhc  library  for  colored  people  sup- 

ported by  public  funds  and  supervised  by  the  regular 
library  commission.  In  many  other  ways  Le  Moyne, 
though  a  missionary  institution,  has  grown  to  hold  a  place 
in  popular  esteem  as  a  semi-public  enterprise.  The  col- 
ored teacher's  examinations  are  usually  held  there,  and 
for  forty  years  it  has  been  the  recognized  fitting  school  for 
the  teachers  of  Memphis  and  the  whole  surrounding  region. 

Beyond  all  such  enterprises  conducted  by  the  schools 
they  have  a  large  place  as  civic  centers  for  manifold  com- 
The  Mission  munity  activities.  Almost  all  non-sectarian 
Schools  as  and  non-pohtical  gatherings  for  race  better- 

ivic  en  ers  j^gnt  meet  in  their  auditoriums.  Sometimes 
a  glee  club  or  orchestra  or  labor-union  or  any  other  of  the 
dozen  organizations  is  housed  there.  In  a  number  of  inter- 
esting cases  the  promising  interracial  conferences  which 
took  place  throughout  the  South  following  the  Atlanta 
riot  found  their  natural  meeting  place  on  the  neutral 
ground  of  the  mission  school  platform.  In  brief,  they  tend 
to  centralize  the  higher  life  of  the  whole  negro  community 
about  them. 

With  equal  definiteness  the  rural  schools  have  reached 
out  and  met  the  larger  problems  of  their  constituents. 
Their  most  effective  method  has  been  fair  and  helpful 
dealings  with  their  own  tenants,  for  the  Association  is  an 
agricultural  landlord  in  eight  or  ten  states  as  well  as  a 
producer  on  at  least  two-score  farms. 

Such  rural  work  is  carried  on  most  extensively  by  the 
Joseph  K.  Brick  School  at  Enfield,  North  Carolina.     On 

17  [  257  ] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

The  Rural  ^^^  educational  side  this  institution  is  a  sec- 

Social  Settle-  ondary  school  like  those  described  in  a  previ- 
™^°*  ous  section,  but  its  equipment  is  immensely 

superior,  consisting  of  half  a  dozen  brick  school  and  dor- 
mitory buildings,  with  shops,  stock,  and  machinery  all  on 
a  magnificent  domain  of  1129  acres  of  level  bottom  land. 
No  other  negro  farm  school  has  so  much  fertile  soil  and 
few  have  so  good  a  plant. 

There  are  seven  families  on  the  estate  besides  two  grown 
sons  living  at  home  who  rent  land  independently,  fifteen 
The  Brick  acres    each.      The    farms    average   thirty    to 

School  Tenants  forty-five  acres  to  a  family,  or  about  ten  acres 
per  working  member,  and  are  rented  generally  for  a  speci- 
fied number  of  pounds  of  lint  cotton.  No  mortgage  is 
given  and  instead  of  the  endless  verbiage  of  Southern 
crop  lien  contracts,  there  is  a  simple  agreement  of  twelve 
lines  requiring  that  no  part  of  the  crop  be  removed  until 
the  rent  is  paid,  and  plainly  stipulating  the  amount  of  rent 
in  cash  or  produce  and  the  repairs  or  other  betterments 
to  be  allowed  the  tenants.  The  most  significant  clause  is 
as  follows :  "  I  also  agree  that  there  shall  be  no  use  of 
intoxicating  liquor  except  for  medical  purposes,  prescribed 
by  a  physician,  in  the  house  in  which  I  reside,  or  upon  the 
lands  which  I  rent,  and  no  violation  of  morality  injurious 
to  the  farm,  and  no  conduct  which  is  not  in  harmony  with 
the  teaching  of  the  school."  Naturally  this  acts  as  a 
selective  influence  and  with  the  fair  treatment  and  excellent 
school  privileges  secures  a  superior  class  of  tenants.  Six 
of  the  seven  families  have  been  on  the  place  from  six  to 
ten  years  each.  Each  is  furnished  with  a  clean,  well  white- 
washed, four-room  cabin  which,  compared  with  the  average 
farm  habitation,  is  clearly  entitled  to  be  called  a  model 
tenement.    The  Brick  School  tenants  (though  by  no  means 

[258] 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 

equally  reliable  and  free  from  vice)  are  without  exception 
deacons  in  Baptist  churches.  At  present  they  furnish  an 
aggregate  of  twenty  children  to  the  school. 

Number  1,  for  example,  has  been  but  two  years  on  the 
place.  He  drinks  and  has  no  credit,  consequently  is  not 
allowed  to  go  in  debt  at  the  store.  He  could  only  pay  half 
of  his  rent  in  1907.  He  has  no  stock  save  a  mortgaged 
horse,  and  his  expenditures  are  disproportionate  to  the 
size  of  his  family.  His  is  decidedly  the  poorest  record. 
Yet  the  school  does  not  despair  of  him.  It  has  taken  poor 
material  and  made  men  of  it. 

Number  2  has  been  on  the  school-farm  eight  years. 
There  are  three  working  members  in  his  family.  He  paid 
his  rent  in  full  and  had  $200  cash  surplus  in  1907.  His 
advances  at  the  store  average  $350  per  year.  Though 
somewhat  in  debt  he  owns  a  horse,  a  buggy,  a  mule  and 
wagon,  a  cow,  and  some  poultry.  His  agricultural  habits 
and  methods  leave  much  to  be  desired,  for  his  grown  son, 
a  graduate  of  the  school,  raises  four  times  as  much  cotton 
on  fifteen  acres  as  his  father  does  on  thirty  and  borrows 
money  at  the  bank  at  6  per  cent,  while  the  father  still  pays 
from  12  per  cent  to  20  per  cent  to  the  merchants. 

Number  3,  a  widow  with  two  sons  of  laboring  age,  had 
$250  surplus  last  year  and  is  probably  out  of  debt.  She 
owns  a  horse,  cow,  buggy,  wagon,  and  poultry  and  lives 
industriously  and  comfortably  on  thirty  acres  of  land. 

Number  4  has  a  working  family  of  six.  He  drinks  and 
only  just  about  came  out  even  last  year.  He  is  perhaps 
$200  in  debt  now,  but  has  more  stock  than  most  of  his 
neighbors ;  namely,  two  horses,  three  cows,  hogs  and  poul- 
try, besides  a  buggy  and  wagon.  He  has  been  nine  years 
on  the  place. 

Number  5  has  a  family  of  seven  working  members.     He 

[259] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

was  $10  short  on  his  rent  last  year,  but  this  was  due  to 
serious  sickness.  He  is  probably  not  in  debt.  He  has 
fewer  possessions  than  the  average  man,  but  lives  with 
corresponding  economy. 

Number  6  has  been  eight  years  with  the  school  and  is 
easily  the  star  tenant.  Last  year  it  took  only  half  of  his 
cotton  to  pay  his  rent.  He  is  out  of  debt  and  has  extra 
credit.  He  owns  three  horses,  three  head  of  cattle,  hogs, 
and  thirty  chickens  which  yielded  him  two  hundred  dozen 
eggs  last  year.  His  son  is  studying  architecture  at  Cor- 
nell University. 

Number  7  is  a  tenant  of  ten  years'  standing  who  has 
educated  his  children  and  now  has  a  crop  of  grandchildren 
in  the  school.  There  are  now  six  working  hands.  He  had 
fourteen  hundred  pounds  of  cotton  after  paying  last  year's 
rent  and  is  even  at  the  store.  He  has  no  vices  and  though 
he  lives  closely,  his  large  family  of  the  third  generation 
keeps  him  poor.  He  has  a  horse,  three  cattle,  hogs,  poul- 
try, and  a  buggy.  An  unmarried  son  who  rents  inde- 
pendently owns  a  three-hundred-dollar  horse. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  how  these  more  than  average 
tenants  used  their  surplus  last  year.  Number  2  bought  a 
mule  and  buggy.  Number  3  traded  for  a  better  horse  and 
got  a  new  buggy  and  furniture.  He  had  also  to  pay  a 
large  doctor's  bill.  The  model  tenant.  Number  7,  made  a 
small  payment  on  the  eighty-acre  farm  but  could  not  resist 
the  temptation  to  buy  an  extra  horse  and  new  buggy.  Per- 
haps the  conditions  of  tenancy  here  are  too  ideal  to  excite 
ambition  for  landownership.  Nevertheless  the  lesson  has 
not  remained  unlearned,  as  an  individual  case  testifies. 

When  the  school  began,  twelve  years  ago,  Mr.  Hil- 
liard  Phillips  lived  about  twelve  miles  away  on  a  farm 

[260] 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 

rented  on  tlie  "  mortgage  system,"  and  lived  other- 
wise as  the  mass  of  negroes  are  living  in  rural  dis- 
tricts. He  had  the  usual  number  of  poor  dogs  and 
ignorant  children.  He  worked  hard  and  spent  much 
for  tobacco,  snuff,  and  dram.  He  did  not  see  how  he 
could  spare  the  money  to  send  even  one  child  to  school. 
I  reasoned  with  him  that  if  he  would  quit  his  habits 
we  would  take  his  girl  in  school  for  what  his  tobacco, 
snuff,  and  dram  cost  him,  amounting  to  four  dollars 
a  month.  We  allowed  the  girl  to  work  out  the  other 
four.  She  came  to  school  that  one  year,  where  she 
learned  to  cook  all  the  necessary  foods  for  the  home 
family.  She  attended  school  five  or  six  years  in  all. 
She  is  now  one  of  the  best  teachers  in  the  county. 
She  is  a  fine  seamstress  and  a  good  housekeeper. 
Mr.  Phillips  has  bought  and  paid  for  one  hundred 
and  three  acres  of  land  near  our  school.  He  has  built 
a  four-roomed  cottage  on  it  for  himself,  and  two  other 
cottages  adjoining  his  for  his  two  married  sons.  He 
mortgages  nothing,  but  pays  cash  for  what  he  wants, 
and  can  get  money  from  the  bank.  He  raises  his  own 
feed  and  table  vegetables.  He  has  the  best  house  and 
the  best  farm  of  his  community,  cleaner  premises  and 
cleaner  crops.  Whatever  he  is  to-day  he  attributes 
to  the  influence  of  the  school.  I  might  name  any  num- 
ber of  old  and  young  men  who  live  on  their  own 
places  as  the  result  of  this  school.  Families  which 
once  lived  in  filth  and  crime  now  live  in  clean  quarters 
and  in  healthful  conditions.  Better  schoolhouses, 
better  churches,  better  homes,  good  gardens,  and  clean 
community  life.  Good  pictures  have  taken  the  place 
of  whisky  and  tobacco  advertisements.  Sunday- 
schools,  literary  societies,  farmers'  meetings,  and 
reading  circles  have  supplanted  Sunday  baseball, 
chicken  fights,  and  neighborhood  dances.     In  nearly 

all  the  homes  there  are  Bibles,  in  about  all  are  Chris- 
— - 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

tian  papers,  in  very  many  of  them  are  found  the  Wo- 
man's Home  Journal  and  The  Woman's  Companion. 

I  had  the  privilege  of  attending  the  Annual  Farmers' 
Day  at  Brick  School  one  Washington's  birthday.  The 
A  "Farmers'  gathering  was  mostly  of  tenants  and  neigh- 
Day"  Gather-  bors,  parents  of  pupils,  with  some  well-wishers 
*^  from  the  village  and  from  greater  distances. 

There  were  morning  and  evening  sessions  with  a  barbecue 
and  picnic  between.  There  were  four  invited  speakers, 
two  white  men,  an  expert  from  the  State  Agricultural  de- 
partment and  a  visiting  minister,  and  two  negroes,  a  pro- 
fessor and  a  lawyer.  The  expert  preached  the  gospel  of 
diversified  farming,  of  green-manuring  and  deep  plowing. 
He  explained  the  bacteriology  of  the  soil  and  praised  the 
peanut  as  an  article  of  diet.  He  especially  advised  atten- 
tion to  forage  crops  and  the  development  of  stock-raising 
in  the  South.  The  professor  spoke  of  the  negro's  superior 
advantages  in  the  country ;  warned  against  the  evils  of 
city  life,  and  exhorted  parents  to  make  the  rural  home 
more  attractive.  The  lawyer  dealt  with  the  crop  mortgage 
system.  Mortgages,  he  said,  were  not  an  evil  but  an 
advantage  to  the  borrower  and  lender.  They  were  in- 
tended to  be  kept  and  should  therefore  be  understood.  The 
negro  should  know  both  his  obligations  and  his  rights  and 
insist  on  the  latter.  He  must  have  education  enough  to 
figure  his  own  bills  and  decline  to  pay  illegal  rates  of  in- 
terest on  advances.  The  minister  talked  about  the  farmer's 
life  from  the  side  of  expenditures,  health,  and  amusement. 
Education  and  character,  he  said,  are  more  important  than 
lands  and  goods  and  no  people  ought  to  be  satisfied  with 
mere  material  prosperity.  Each  speaker  was  repeatedly 
interrupted  with  eager  and  intelligent  questions.    An  open 

[262] 


TYPICAL    MISSIONARY    ACTIVITIES 


parliament  followed  at  which  successful  farmers  told  their 
vicissitudes  and  triumphs.  All  questions  showed  the  gen- 
uine and  practical  influence  of  previous  farmers'  confer- 
ences and  for  the  first  time  the  old  plantation  owner,  who 
had  had  some  of  these  men  and  many  of  their  fathers  as 
his  slaves,  came  to  compare  his  farming  experience  with 
theirs  as  freedmen.  These  are  typical  examples  of  the  in- 
fluence proceeding  from  every  mission  school,  constituting 
a  vast  outreach  for  the  well-being  of  the  most  representa- 
tive negro  —  the  farmer. 

Every  practical  effort  for  the  freedman  from  the  begin- 
ning has  had  to  face  the  staggering  fact  of  his  poverty. 

Ph'l    th  ■^^^  °^^^  ^^  *^^  whole  fabric  of  missionary 

education  a  philanthropy  which  has  cost  mil- 
lions —  but  the  annual  conduct  of  every  school  involves 
innumerable  individual  cases  of  the  assistance  or  relief  of 
the  poor.  Its  methods  range  from  the  sale  of  old  clothing 
from  barrels  from  the  North  (a  ministry  not  to  be  despised 
since  it  annually  involves  goods  worth  tens  of  thousands 
of  dollars  in  the  aggregate)  to  far-reaching  land-acquire- 
ment schemes,  combining  philanthropy  and  five  per  cent. 
The  policy  of  the  Association  has  been  to  confine  its 
activities  primarily  to  school  and  church  work.  Incident- 
ally, however,  it  has  founded,  fostered,  or  sympathized  with 
almost  every  form  of  organized  charitable  service.  Its 
institutions  have  never  been  called  homes  or  orphanages, 
but  have  annually  performed  the  functions  of  both.  Every 
school  grants  free  tuition  in  special  cases  and  carries  a 
minority  of  free  pupils  from  year  to  year  —  some  of  them 
from  infancy  to  independence.  I  happened  to  be  at  our 
Marion,  Alabama,  school  one  day,  when  the  principal  re- 
ceived an  early  morning  gift  of  three  homeless  children; 
a  man  brought  them  in  a  mule-cart,  said  they  were  for  the 

[263] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

school  and  departed.  This  is  no  rare  experience.  Many 
teachers  have  undertaken  the  rearing  of  abandoned  chil- 
dren —  sometimes  legally  adopting  them.  Probably  the 
Girls'  Industrial  School  at  Moorhead,  Mississippi,  is  car- 
rying this  phase  of  service  further  than  any  other  school 
at  present.  Its  recent  new  dining-hall  has  a  large  ward 
on  the  second  floor  as  a  dormitory  for  small  girls.  Here 
some  forty  are  cared  for  by  a  motherly  colored  woman. 
By  no  means  all  of  its  pupils  belong  to  the  needy  class 
but  some  are  orphans,  others  motherless,  and  more  father- 
less. They  are  sent  from  as  far  as  California,  to  share  with 
children  from  along  the  bayous  of  the  delta,  children  from 
the  sawmill  quarters,  illegitimate  children  of  Greenwood 
or  Indianola  merchants  and  children  of  prosperous,  aspir- 
ing Tougaloo  graduates,  "  the  pure  atmosphere  of  a 
happy.  Christian  home.  The  law  of  kindness  and  obedience 
is  the  natural  law  in  this,  to  them,  charmed  spot.  Orderly 
habits,  pure  language,  the  daily  devotion,  grace  at  each 
meal,  the  study  of  the  Bible,  the  weekly  prayer-meeting, 
the  large,  enthusiastic  Sunday-school,  the  gospel  service 
of  song  have  an  indescribable  power."  Thus,  as  always, 
the  outreach  of  the  mission  school  is  also  an  upreach  which 
tries  to  teach  the  little  child  why  the  cup  of  cold  water  is 
given  him  and  in  what  Name,  that  he,  himself,  may  become 
a  giver  as  well  as  a  receiver. 


264] 


IX.  PROBLEMS  AND  PROGRAMS 
OF  NEGRO  EDUCATION 

PROBABLY  more  Americans  hold  cherished  opinions 
upon  negro  education  than  upon  the  education  of 
their  own  children.  The  average  parent  is  bliss- 
fully unconscious- that  the  whole  educational  field  bristles 
with  interrogation  points,  yet  he  is  very  likely  a  parti- 
„.,  ,        san  on  race  training.     Ask  the  principal  of 

Partisanship  a  New  England  academy  or  Middle  West 
on  Negro  high  school  whether  his  institution  is  solving 

Education  ^^^    social   problem   in    its    own    community. 

He  will  look  blank  and  reply  that  it  never  professed  any- 
thing of  the  sort,  and  he  is  too  busy  teaching  school  to 
think  about  it.  Then  he  will  turn  and  express  grave 
doubt  whether  negro  education  is  solving  the  race  prob- 
lem. Only  in  this  case  is  the  nation  conscious  of  the  close 
relation  between  schooling  and  statesmanship.  Thus  it 
does  negro  education  the  honor  of  applying  to  it  more 
than  ordinarily  exacting  standards. 

And  this  is  well  for  negro  education,  which  already 
need  not  be  ashamed  of  any  competitive  showing.  In 
J    p.  working   out   through   conflict   its    own   pro- 

Service  to  gram  it  has  done  some  pioneer  thinking  for 

Education  the    whole    nation.      Both   the    experimental 

at  Large  ^^^  ^^iq  logical  foundations  of  the  most  sig- 

nificant of  present  educational  movements  —  that  of  incor- 
porating industrial  education  into  our  common  school  sys- 
tem —  go  back  to  Hampton.     Armstrong  is  positively  the 

[265] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

nation's  most  original  educational  genius.  Popular  ability 
to  appreciate  current  discussions  of  educational  statesman- 
ship is  the  product  of  debates  about  how  to  train  colored 
youths. 

It  is  well,  too,  that  much  be  required  of  the  school ;  then 
perhaps  much  will  be  given  to  it.  Only  by  ceasing  to  be 
The  Propriety  "lere  school-teaching  and  undertaking  defi- 
of  Severe  nitely  to  meet  social  aims,  can  education  get 

^^^^^  proper  regard  from  popular  judgment.    Let 

other  schools  meet  the  same  test.  Judge  them  by  their 
success  in  solving  their  peculiar  social  problems ;  then 
frankly  admit  that  it  is  the  business  of  negro  education  to 
be  the  most  influential  single  factor  in  assimilating  to  our 
national  civilization  the  largest  and  most  deficient  group 
of  incomplete  Americans.  This  is  why  it  is  important  and 
why  its  claim  upon  patriotic  philanthropy  is  so  good. 
Philanthropy  does  well  to  insist  upon  a  sound  social  policy 
in  its  administration,  and  the  South  is  perfectly  justified 
in  insisting  that  the  Northern  benefactor  think  of  the 
deep  effect  of  his  gifts  upon  the  entire  and  complicated 
problem  of  its  dual  civilization.  That  the  school  wields 
immense  power  over  national  destiny ;  that  "  through  edu- 
cation society  can  formulate  its  own  purposes,  can  or- 
ganize its  own  means  and  resources,  and  thus  shape  itself 
with  definiteness  and  economy  in  the  direction  in  which  it 
wishes  to  move  " ;  ^  and  that  the  test  of  social  eflSciency 
must  be  met,  we  wish  both  to  admit  and  to  insist. 

The  practical  task  then  is  to  work  through  the  mani- 
fold problems  of  negro  education  to  a  program  which  meets 
this  test. 

*  Dewey,  "  My  Pedagogical  Creed,"  p.  17. 
[266] 


NEGRO    EDUCATION 


I.    HIGHER  vs.  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION 

The  earlier  negro  schools  founded  by  Northern  philan- 
thropy were  intended  less  to  teach  the  negro  than  to  teach 
Higher  Edu-       the  nation.     Their  attempts  were  to  help  him 

cation  an  meet  the  white  man's  —  especially  the  South- 
Attempt  to  g^^   ^j^-^g    j^^^,g  _   ^gg^        rpj^jg    ^gg|.    ^^g    j^^^ 
Meet  the 
White  Man's  utihtarian  but  ideal.     It  was  reported  that 

Test  John  C.  Calhoun  had  said,  "  Show  me  a  negro 

who  knows  Greek  syntax,  and  I  will  then  believe  that  he  is 
a  human  being  who  should  be  treated  as  a  man."  ^  At  any 
rate  the  argument  for  slavery  had  finally  rested  upon  the 
alleged  natural  inferiority  of  the  colored  race;  conse- 
quently the  first  task  of  freedom  was  naturally  to  prove 
the  capacity  of  the  race.  The  early-founded  universities 
were  thus  a  testimony  to  that  capacity,  a  demonstration 
in  the  persons  of  a  selected  few  of  what  the  negro  mind 
could  do.  As  such  they  admirably  succeeded.  Hundreds 
of  negroes  during  the  reconstruction  period  learned  to 
read  Greek  as  part  of  the  higher  education  of  the  age. 
Both  instinct  and  theory  maintained  that  such  would  con- 
stitute the  natural  leaders  of  their  people  in  its  new  era. 
Further  than  that  this  higher  education  was  not  designed 
to  adjust  the  race  to  the  immediate  practical  demands  of  its 
life.  There  was  no  fundamentally  thought-out  program 
for  leadership  to  follow;  no  clear  recognition  of  stages 
of  necessary  development.  Was  this  failure  an  essential 
error,  or  was  it  part  of  a  deeper  wisdom.''  We  shall  re- 
turn to  this  question  a  little  later. 

In  view  of  its  theoretical  impulse  the  ideals  of  higher 

*  See  Crummell,  "The  Attitude  of  the  American  Mind  toward  the 
Negro  Intellect,"  Occasional  Papers  of  the  American  Negro  Academy, 
No.  3,  p.  11. 


[267] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

education  for  the  negro  were  simply  and  easily  formulated. 
The  motives  underlying  "  industrial  education "  on  the 
p       p,  other  hand  are  more  obscure,  having  emerged 

of  Industrial  from  a  more  complicated  course  of  evolu- 
Education —      tion.      It  was   originated  by  Annstrong   at 

ms  rong  Hampton ;    urged  as  a  social  policy  and  in- 

adequately practised  by  the  South;  developed  and  used 
by  Booker  T.  Washington  for  the  upbuilding  of  Tuske- 
gee;  and  given  a  theoretical  basis  by  Northern  scholar- 
ship. Each  of  these  four  interesting  phases  may  be 
briefly  traced. 

It  is  a  sorry  caricature  of  the  original  impulse  of  Hamp- 
ton to  define  it  in  the  terms  of  a  pedagogical  ideal.  It 
was  rather  a  man  incarnate  —  Armstrong  himself,  multi- 
plied and  in  action.  Born  on  missionary  soil,  he  inherited 
the  devotion  and  profited  by  the  experience  of  noble  efforts 
for  the  uplift  of  a  backward  people.  At  Hampton,  first 
under  the  Freedman's  Bureau,  a  httle  later  with  the  com- 
mission and  support  of  the  American  Missionary  Associa- 
tion, he  had  to  face  the  problem  of  masses  of  ignorant 
negroes,  deficient  in  the  very  rudiments  of  civilization. 
His  practical  solution  was  to  put  them  at  manual  work  in 
connection  with  elementary  schooling.  This  was  the  mani- 
fest, immediate  solution  and  indeed  the  ordinary  one  in 
all  the  mission  schools.  For  whatever  his  theories,  the 
man  at  the  front  is  always  an  opportunist —  or  else  he 
does  not  stay  long.  But  Hampton  so  bore  the  stamp  of 
Armstrong's  personal  genius,  and  that  genius  was  so  splen- 
didly independent  and  pervasive,  that  its  ideas  and  general 
methods  became  a  shibboleth.  He  was  wholesomely  dis- 
gusted with  the  veneering  process  which  conventional  mis- 
sions had  frequently  employed  upon  undeveloped  peoples. 
His  sincerity  and  sense  of  instant  need  united  to  demand 

{268] 


NEGRO    EDUCATION 


that  negro  education  should  rest  upon  sohd  foundations ; 
yet  he  never  urged  the  Hampton  policy  as  exclusively 
right,  nor  doubted  that  the  higher  institutions  were  also 
necessary.  It  was  a  matter  of  emphasis.  He  was  not 
devising  a  panacea;  the  Hampton  way  was  simply  his 
way.  And  industrialism  is  altogether  too  lean  a  name  for 
his  way.  The  personal  and  ideal  incentives  which  he  put 
into  manual  work  were  the  secret  of  its  chief  virtues.  In- 
dustrial education  has  never  been  in  other  hands  what  it 
was  in  his.  No  other  has  been  able  to  mix  its  elements 
with  such  consummate  art,  or  so  to  inform  them  with  the 
Christian  spirit.  His  instrument  has  mastered  lesser  men. 
He  alone  could  bend  his  own  bow. 

Worlds  away  both  in  motive  and  method  was  industrial 
education  for  negroes  as  it  came  to  be  the  sectional  pro- 
gram of  the  South.     Its  coming  was  on  this  wise: 

In  spite  of  the  tremendous  social  and  political  upheavals 
of  Reconstruction,  habit,  that  great  balance-wheel  of  our 
Th  S  th'  D  humanity,  held  the  men  of  that  generation 
layed  Demand  largely  to  the  substance  of  the  older  order, 
for  Industrial  There  were  new  external  relations,  but  those 
whose  life  and  thought  were  hardened  before 
the  war  remained  inwardly  much  the  same  after  the  war. 
It  was  only  with  the  dying  off  of  that  generation  and  the 
wearing  away  by  time  of  habitual  race  relations,  that  the 
South  began  to  realize  how  profound  was  the  revolution 
that  had  befallen  it.  The  North  does  not  realize  it  to  this 
day.  Many  of  the  most  deeply  disturbing  results  of  eman- 
cipation were  not  manifest  during  Reconstruction,  and 
this  explains  why  the  second  generation  of  Southerners  is 
frequently  more  bitter  over  it  than  was  the  first. 

The  change  which  most  impressed  the  South  was  what 
it  took  to  be  the  deterioration  of  negro  labor.     Slavery- 

[  269  ] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

trained  craftsmen  grew  fewer  and  fewer,  and  there  were 
none  to  take  their  place ;  while  the  will  to  work  under  white 
direction  seemed  steadily  to  wane.  Thus  arose  a  demand 
for  institutions  which  should  teach  the  freedman  to  do  the 
things  for  which  he  had  been  trained  on  the  plantations  — 
to  become  a  skilled  workman  in  the  simpler  manual  indus- 
tries. The  negro's  education  was  to  be  vocational,  with  no 
expectation  that  he  would  want  to  change  his  vocation. 
Education  was  not  conceived  as  a  key  for  wider  opportu- 
nity, but  a  tool  for  the  negro's  use  in  his  present  status. 
This  was  a  splendid  ideal  in  that  it  was  a  frank  attempt 
to  adjust  men  to  some  of  the  actual  possibilities  of  life, 
but  deficient  in  that  it  limited  those  opportunities  by  a 
narrow  expectation.  To  the  South  the  negro  was  naturally 
inferior,  and  it  had  not  faith  to  approach  his  educational 
problem  with  those  incentives  which  were  the  soul  of  Arm- 
strong's method.  Industrial  education  by  no  means  meant 
the  same  thing  to  him  and  to  the  South;  yet  because  they 
favored  common  external  forms  of  schooling  they  had  the 
immense  practical  advantage  of  being  able  to  work  to- 
gether. From  the  standpoint  of  national  peace  and  good 
will  this  must  be  counted  an  immeasurable  gain.  Virginia 
subsidized  Hampton  as  Alabama  later  did  Tuskegee. 
Dr.  Lyman  Abbott  has  recently  observed  that  the  most 
significant  thing  about  them  is  that  they  are  state-sup- 
ported institutions. 

The  third  great  factor  in  working  out  the  ideal  of  negro 
industrial  education  has  been  the  personahty  of  that  great- 
Washington  at  est  Southerner  of  his  generation,  Booker  T. 
Tuskegee  Washington.     Inspired  by  his  teacher  Arm- 

strong, and  by  liis  own  experience  as  a  Hampton  in- 
structor, he  undertook  the  foundation  of  a  similar  insti- 
tution at  Tuskegee  for  the  service  of  his  race.     In  the 

[270] 


NEGRO    EDUCATION 


fashioning  of  pleas  for  money  for  this  institution,  and  in 
its  defense,  largely  against  negro  critics,  he  has  formulated 
his  educational  philosophy  and  bolstered  it  with  mildly 
theoretical  arguments. 

He  early  saw  that  the  external  features  of  Armstrong's 
gospel  —  plenty    of    manual    work    for    negroes  —  might 
.  win  the  favor  of  the  South.     Convinced  that 

ton  and  his  "  ^^^  friendliness  of  his  white  neighbor  is  prac- 
Temperamental  tically  more  important  to  the  negro  than  any 
Aversion  to  immediate  exercise  of  political  power,  he  has 
been  content  to  gain  that  favor  by  holding 
controverted  issues  largely  in  abeyance  and  by  emphasiz- 
ing what  the  South  likes.  For  this  "  quiescence,  if  not 
acquiescence  "  in  the  South's  race  policy  he  has  been  at- 
tacked with  incredible  bitterness  by  the  more  militant  party 
within  his  own  race;  but  he  has  steadily  and  wisely,  per- 
haps desperately,  held  to  his  own  clue  to  the  difficulty, 
namely,  that  the  negro  as  a  producer  is  indispensable  to 
the  South.  He  may  so  maintain  and  strengthen  his  econ- 
omic hold  that  political  and  social  privileges  also  must  be 
granted  to  him  in  the  long  run. 

The  negro  in  the  South  has  it  within  his  power,  if 
he  properly  utilizes  the  forces  at  hand,  to  make  of 
himself  such  a  valuable  factor  in  the  Hfe  of  the  South 
that  he  will  not  have  to  seek  privileges :  they  will  be 
freely  conferred  upon  him.  To  bring  this  about  the 
negro  must  begin  at  the  bottom  and  lay  a  sure  founda- 
tion, and  not  be  lured  by  any  temptation  into  trying 
to  rise  on  a  false  foundation.  While  the  negro  is  lay- 
ing this  foundation  he  will  need  help,  sympathy,  and 
simple  justice.-^ 

On  one  hand  this  is  making  a  virtue  of  necessity,  but  it 

1  "The  Future  of  the  American  Negro,"  pp.  220-221. 


[271] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

probably  also  reflects  Mr.  Washington's  mind.  Undoubt- 
edly the  material  prosperity  of  his  race  is  his  most  sponta- 
neous interest.  Only  by  taking  thought  does  he  appreciate 
the  significance  of  spiritual  affairs.  His  secondary  em- 
phasis upon  them  is  a  sincere  thought,  but  an  after- 
thought. He  leads  his  race  after  the  pattern  of  his  own 
heart.  Every  oratorical  period  is  ended  with  a  plea  for 
character  and  service ;  but  these  things  are  not  original 
passions  with  him  as  with  Armstrong.  One  does  not  doubt 
the  worthiness  of  it,  but  one  feels  the  transition  from  im- 
mediate to  remote  enthusiasm.  Mr.  Washington's  earlier 
attacks  upon  mere  bookishness  in  negro  education  were 
never  as  necessary  as  he  thought,  either  to  put  his  own 
people  right  or  to  attract  Northern  philanthropy  into 
profitable  channels.  They  served,  however,  to  point  out 
the  needs  of  Tuskegee.  The  institution,  however,  certainly 
did  not  lack  positive  grounds  of  appeal.  Its  marvelous 
success  is  the  most  impressive  single  evidence  of  negro 
energy  and  practical  ability.  By  reason  of  this  great 
achievement,  and  of  his  persistent  and  peace-loving  opti- 
mism, Mr.  Washington  has  become  the  official  ambassador 
of  his  race  in  its  group-relations  to  the  nation.  Particu- 
larly he  has  given  the  doctrine  of  industrial  education  for 
the  negro  national  standing. 

The  extraordinary  appeal  of  his  ideas  to  the  North  is 
due  partly  to  Mr.  Washington's  rare  eloquence  and  tact 

in  their  persistent  presentation ;  partly  to  an 
of  Economic  increasing  desire  in  the  North  to  accept 
Progress  Ac-  what  is  also  acceptable  to  the  South ;  but 
N^rth  ^^  *^^      partly   also   to  the   circumstance   that   these 

ideas  fall  in  with  prevalent  theoretical  ten- 
dencies. The  social  theorizing  of  to-day  is  largely  domi- 
nated by  the  idea  of  the  primacy   of  economic  progress 

[272] 


NEGRO    EDUCATION 


in  human  development.  Men  must  first  acquire,  then  use 
wealth.  The  effective  exercise  of  the  higher  capacities  of 
a  people  is  conditioned  upon  their  possession  of  a  mate- 
rial surplus,  which  permits  complete  nutrition,  efl5cient 
labor,  a  normal  play  of  incentive,  and  finally  the  turning 
of  interest  to  ideal  pursuits.  If  there  is  any  racial  justifi- 
cation for  Greek  it  can  only  appear  after  victories  have 
been  won  through  industrial  education.  This  is  the  negro's 
first  need.  Influential  Northern  journals,  like  The  Out- 
look, have  figured  largely  in  popularizing  this  view.^ 

In  practical  outcome  neither  the  higher  nor  the  indus- 
trial idea  has  had  any  sufficiently  wide  application  to  negro 
Higher  and  education.  The  typical  agency,  whether 
Industrial  public  or  private,  has  been  and  is  an  elemen- 

uca  ion  tary  school  in  which  the  rudiments  of  leam- 

auke  more  _      "^ 

Talked  about  ing  are  bookishly  taught.  Many  more  dollars 
than  Practised  have  been  spent  on  such  institutions  than  on 
all  others  combined.  The  most  important  exceptions  to 
this  rule,  numerically  speaking,  are  not  schools  supported 
by  the  South,  nor  yet  Hampton  nor  Tuskegee,  but  the 
large  missionary  boarding-schools  which  have  had  to  main- 
tain themselves  and  their  students  largely  by  productive 
work.  The  chief  administrators  of  these  schools  have  done 
essentially  what  Armstrong  did,  though  less  consciously, 
systematically,  aggressively.  They  have  been  oppor- 
tunists who,  in  setting  out  to  train  leaders,  have  found  it 
necessary  first  to  educate  masses  of  raw  material  from 
which  to  choose  leaders.  Whatever  the  theories  of  men  in 
Northern  offices,  the  men  at  the  front  have  become  fun- 
damentally interested  in  this  more  extensive  task.  How 
broadly  they  have  met  it  appears  in  detail  in  other  chapters. 

•  For  a  typical  utterance,  see  Hyde,  A  National  Platform  on  the  Race 
Question,  The  Outlook,  May  21,  1904,  p.  169. 

18  [273  1 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

Higher  education,  then,  has  been  more  talked  about  than 
practised.  There  is  not  actually  a  surplus  of  negroes  who 
can  read  Greek.  With  the  exception  of  the  ministry,  sta- 
tistics show  that  all  professions  are  numerically  under- 
manned by  negroes.  A  trained  colored  physician,  just  out 
of  school,  has  an  immeasurably  larger  opportunity  to  start 
out  with  a  good  practise  than  an  equally  trained  white 
man.  Negro  teachers  are  proportionately  only  one-half  as 
numerous  as  white ;  and  if  quality  and  character  count  in 
the  ministry  there  is  no  calling  more  in  need  of  highly 
trained  men.  Out  of  the  ten  million  negroes  in  the  na- 
tion there  are  to-day  less  than  seventy  thousand  in  all 
schools  higher  than  elementary  —  academic,  industrial, 
commercial,  and  professional,  North,  South,  East,  and 
West. 

Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  has  industrial  education  begun 
to  be  adequately  furnished.  As  practised  in  its  chiefly 
exploited  centers  it  has  had  limited  scope  and  confessedly 
has  come  far  short  of  the  ideals  of  its  leaders.  Only  about 
one-third  of  the  present  enrolment  of  Hampton  (1300)  is 
actually  receiving  industrial  training  either  in  agriculture 
or  trades.  Less  than  fifty  per  cent  of  its  graduates  and 
less  than  twelve  per  cent  of  Tuskegee's  have  followed  the 
industries  in  after  life. 

In  an  address  on  the  trade-school  ideal,  Major  Moton, 
commandant  at  Hampton,  said: 

Hampton  does  not  by  any  means  approximate  its 
ideal  in  trade-school  work,  for  it  is  necessary  now  — 
and  probably  will  be  for  a  long  time  to  come  —  to 
teach  a  large  number  of  undergraduate  pupils,  who 
learn  their  trades  while  they  are  taking  the  academic 
course,  but  post-graduate  work  is  without  question 

[274] 


NEGRO    EDUCATION 


the  ideal  toward  which  trade-school  work  should  be 

tending.^ 

He  added  that  for  its  first  thirty  years  of  existence, 
Hampton  did  not  teach  the  trades  in  any  adequate  sense. 
Most  of  the  purely  state-supported  agricultural  and  in- 
dustrial schools  for  colored  citizens  are  feeble  indeed. 
North  Carohna  and  Mississippi  have  creditable  institu- 
tions; a  larger  number  of  states  scarcely  do  more  than 
transmit  Federal  funds,  leaving  their  negro  institutions 
largely  to  shift  for  themselves.  Probably  there  are  a 
dozen  missionary  institutions  which  have  incidentally  done 
more  in  actual  industrial  training  than  has  any  state  insti- 
tution in  the  South. 

To-day's  need,  therefore,  is  for  many  more  schools  of 

more  sorts  than  the  original  contestants  over  negro  edu- 

XT    ,    f  cation  dreamed.     This  need  has  become  unde- 

XSeed  oi  more 

Schools  of  niable   by   reason    of   the   actual   social   and 

all  Sorts  economic  differentiation  of  the  negro  popula- 

tion. While  the  white  men  were  debating  what  kind  of  an 
education  was  best  for  him,  the  negro  has  been  quietly  en- 
gaging in  all  the  activities  of  life,  until  no  one  who  studies 
his  census  record  or  learns  his  varied  functions  in  any 
representative  city  can  doubt  that  he  needs  an  all-sided 
training  to  fit  him  for  his  actual  opportunities. 

The  question  of  the  relative  emphasis  upon  different 
forms  and  types  of  training  is  now  being  settled  for  any 
p      .    .  given  locality  or  calling  by  an  objective  scien- 

Agreement  tific    measurement    of    the    extent    of    negro 

of  Former  opportunity  in  it.     As  a  practical  issue  be- 

Partisans  tween  educators   the  old   controversy  is   vir- 

tually dead.  Of  Mr.  Washington's  own  development  Prof. 
Kelly  Miller  justly  writes: 

*  "  The  Negro  Artisan,"  Atlanta   University  Publications,  No.  7,  p.  65. 

[275  1 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

He  began  his  career  with  a  narrow  educational  bias 
and  a  one-sided  championship  of  industrial  training 
as  an  offset  to  the  claims  of  literary  culture  which  had 
hitherto  absorbed  the  substance  of  Northern  philan- 
thropy. But  he  has  grown  so  far  in  grasp  and  in 
breadth  of  view  that  he  now  advocates  all  modes  of 
education  in  their  proper  place  and  proportion.^ 

The  champions  of  higher  education,  on  the  other  hand, 
are  now  consciously  and  confessedly  emphasizing  what 
they  incidentally  tolerated  all  along.  Within  the  last  two 
years  the  American  Missionary  Association  has  added  more 
than  thirty  industrial  teachers  and  equipments  to  its  edu- 
cational forces,  while  its  higher  institutions  are  engaged  in 
putting  an  educational  top  upon  the  lower  forms  of  prac- 
tical training  by  beginnings  in  advanced  technical  courses. 

From  the  vantage-ground  of  the  present  era  of  good 
feeling,  it  will  seem  rash  and  almost  impious  to  turn  back 
Which  was  to  ask  which  emphasis  of  the  past  was  right. 

Right?  Indeed  it  would  not  be  worth  while  to  do  so 

except  for  the  fact  that  the  essential  issues  may  again  be- 
come crucial  in  the  future.  Indeed  they  are  even  now  be- 
coming so  in  the  movement  for  "  vocational  education  for 
the  masses."  Was  the  early  insistence  on  higher  educa- 
tion and  the  delay  of  industrialism  wise  or  wasteful.'' 
Was  it  true  statesmanship  or  a  sentimental  blunder  .-^  I 
confess  that  I  think  it  justified  itself  both  psychologi- 
cally, as  fixing  the  negro's  favorable  status  in  the  mind 
of  Christendom,  and  practically,  as  the  most  effective 
strategy  of  race  development.  It  sifted  out  a  group  of 
leaders.  These  gains  infinitely  outweigh  any  loss  from 
the  postponement  of  industrial  training. 

'  "  Race  Adjustment,"  p.  25. 

[276  1 


NEGRO    EDUCATION 


The  parallel  between  negro  and  woman  —  although  at 
first  thought  unflattering  to  woman  — is  extremely  and 
Negro  and  suggestively  close.     Both  are  struggling  out 

Woman  of  a  status   of  legal   and  social  inferiority ; 

both  suffer  transitional  handicaps,  such  as  inferior  wages 
for  equal  work ;  both  have  made  their  most  striking  initial 
gains  not  at  all  by  evolution  from  below.  The  higher  edu- 
cation of  women  was  in  no  sense  an  attempt  to  adjust  them 
to  the  practical  demand  of  their  lives,  but  rather  to  extend 
the  boundaries  within  which  practical  demands  might  grow. 
Why  did  woman  want  to  go  to  college.'*  Not  better  to  fit 
herself  either  for  home  making  or  for  economic  competi- 
tion, but  to  prove  that  her  higher  capacities  were  equal 
to  man's.  She  succeeded;  and  no  extension  of  woman's 
activity  as  an  economic  producer  has  had  half  the  potency 
for  fixing  her  modern  status,  both  in  her  own  mind  and  in 
the  mind  of  the  age,  as  the  fact  that  Dorothy  Klumpke  has 
discovered  stars,  that  Madame  Curie  tamed  radium,  and 
Mary  Calkins  elaborated  a  psj'^chological  theory. 

Similarly,  in  the  light  of  the  proved  capacities  of  his 
select  men,  civilization  simply  cannot  regard  the  negro 
It  ■  r*  d  as  it  otherwise  would.    Every  race  is  judged 

Strategy  to  by  its  best  as  well  as  by  its  worst.    It  is  good 

Exhibit  the  strateg-y  to  exhibit  the  best  first.  The  insti- 
tutions  of  higher  education  set  the  standards 
of  the  emerged  group  —  the  negro's  finest  and  racially 
most  significant  flower.  Its  achievements  have  been  the 
ideal  capital  of  the  struggling  masses.  From  the  schools 
founded  by  missionary  zeal,  race  leaders  came  to  the  king- 
dom for  just  such  a  time  of  early  trial  and  development. 
Mr.  Washington  is  wrong  in  thinking  that  the  negro  who 
most  impresses  the  South  is  the  thrifty,  property  accumu- 
lating negro.     The  dominant  South  bitterly  and  increas- 

[277  1 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

ingly  confesses  that  the  ominous  man  from  its  standpoint — 
the  negro  whom  it  thinks  about  and  fears  —  is  the  educated 
negro.  Its  social  policy  forces  everj'  other  issue  to  be  sub- 
ordinated to  the  issue  of  negro  capacity  on  the  higher 
levels.  The  higher  education  is  still  the  white  man's  test. 
Mr.  Washington  is  wrong  also  in  arguing,  "  During  tht; 
first  fifty  or  hundred  years  of  the  life  of  any  people  arc- 
not  the  economic  occupations  always  given  the  greater 
attention  ?  "  ^  This  might  be  true  of  a  people  undergoing 
an  independent  evolution,  but  not  of  one  whose  chief  prob- 
lem is  that  of  its  adjustment  to  an  enveloping  civilization, 
—  one  both  highly  complex  and  progressive.  Under  the 
negro's  circumstances  in  America  the  first  problem  was  to 
fix  his  ideal  status.  Whatever  their  incidental  blunders  it 
is  the  imperishable  glory  of  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  and 
the  missionary  universities  to  have  done  this. 

II.    THE  GENERAL  EDUCATIONAL  PARALLEL 

For  the  more  minute  guidance  of  an  educational  policy 
for  negroes  the  general  educational  situation  is  to-day 
American  Ex-  suggestive  as  never  before.  Now,  for  the 
perience  with  first  time,  the  American  school  faces  directly 
Industrial  Edu-j  ^^^  ^^  \arg-e  the  problem  of  special  training 

c^&tion  not 

Theoretically  ^or  different  social  classes  in  a  democracy. 
Significant  With  the  immigration  of  millions  of  new  and 

incomplete  Americans,  with  their  stratification  into  social 
classes,  their  self-discovery,  group  organization,  and 
various  demands,  vocational  education  for  the  masses  be- 
comes a  central  issue.  For  Massachusetts,  as  much  as  for 
Mississippi,  special  types  of  industrial  schools  are  being 
talked  about.  The  large  experience  of  the  educator  of 
'  "Future  of  the  American  Negro,"  p.  228. 
[278] 


NEGRO    EDUCATION 


negroes  with  the  problem  enables  him  to  give  certain  ad- 
vice and  warning  to  the  nation  at  large. 

At  first  thought  the  very  idea  of  class  education  seems 
repugnant  to  democratic  ideas.     No  one  was  bold  enough 

^        T^  to  propose  such  an  idea  until  it  had  been  dis- 

Can  a  Dem-  ft:' 

ocracy  Toler-      covered  that  whether  we  like  it  or  not  we  had 
ate  Class  it  already  in  our  supposed  uniform  schools. 

In  less  than  half  of  its  range  does  our  boasted 
pubhc  school  system  meet  any  general  popular  demand; 
less  than  fifty  per  cent  of  entering  pupils  complete  the 
sixth  grade,  and  only  three  out  of  a  hundred  finish  the  high 
school.  With  the  changed  character  of  our  population 
the  upper  grades  have  become  merely  schools  of  the  more 
well-to-do  classes.  In  atmosphere  and  general  social  tra- 
dition the  average  city  high  school  is  one  of  the  most  dis- 
tinctly marked  of  American  class  institutions. 

Furthermore,  the  great  falling  out  of  pupils  at  the  sixth 
grade  is  not  chiefly  due  to  economic  necessity.  Why  do 
Y  'f  't  P  -  parents  allow  their  children  to  stop  here  who 
vides  Enough  can  well  enough  afford  to  continue  them  for 
Class  Schools  the  seventh  and  eighth  elementary  years .'' 
o  go  oiin  Frankly,  because  they  see  nothing  profitable 
in  those  grades  in  the  present  schools.  Pupils  stop,  not 
for  lack  of  means,  but  for  lack  of  interest.  The  discovery 
of  this  fact  by  the  Massachusetts  Commission  is  epoch- 
making  for  American  education.  Schools  which  more  than 
half  our  people  do  not  want,  nor  use,  are  class  schools, 
become  such  by  failure  to  respond  to  the  widening  needs 
of  the  varied  groups  of  our  population.  The  policy  of 
uniformity  has  broken  down.  The  only  solution,  and  the 
one  adopted  by  all  progressive  European  nations,  is  the 
establishment  of  more  class  schools  —  enough  to  go 
around.     Munich,  for  example,  has  forty  kinds  of  indus- 

[279  1 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

trial  continuation  schools.  The  practical  problem  is  how 
to  secure  an  educational  policy  in  America  which  shall 
offer  a  similar  variety  of  opportunity,  and  still  be  faithful 
to  the  ideals  of  democracy. 

The  moment  of  this  attempted  readjustment  through 
the  multiplication  of  class  schools  is  fraught  with  grave 
The  Danger  dangers  to  our  dearest  convictions.  In  the 
of  the  Attempt  letting  go  of  old  forms  of  democracy,  osten- 
sibly in  order  to  get  a  better  hold  on  its  essentials,  some 
part  of  our  faith  in  its  spirit  may  easily  be  lost.  Back  of 
this  cry  for  vocational  education  is  an  economic  demand 
which  lacks  much  of  being  pure  patriotism  or  philanthropy. 
The  master  classes,  North  and  South  alike,  want  to  train 
workers  for  a  particular  industrial  status.  They  are  con- 
cerned about  the  creation  of  productive  agents  who  can 
compete  with  other  sections  or  with  Germany  at  a  profit 
to  themselves.  They  do  not  think  of  fitting  human  beings 
for  the  enlightened  satisfactions  of  expanding  lives.  The 
simple-minded  educator  is  deceived  by  the  glitter  of  "  in- 
creased national  efficiency  "  and  caught  by  the  promise  of 
more  money  for  schools.  There  is  great  need  to  sound  in 
America  the  noble  word  of  the  English  Consultative  Com- 
mittee, that  no  education  is  truly  vocational  which  does 
not  prepare  for  life  as  well  as  for  livelihood.  However 
much  the  schools  may  create  special  skill,  only  justice  to 
the  worker  can  furnish  motive  for  efficiency. 

Thus,  though  all  must  bow  in  the  temple  of  industrial 

training,  we  need  not  worship  the  commercial 

Education  Rimmon.      In    the   South,    Mr.    Washington 

must  be  Safe-      wisely  uses  and  cooperates  with  sectional  sen- 

S'pict'i^ed     ^™^"*'  ^^*  without  accepting  it  as  final.     In 

the  North  educational  policy  must  shrewdly 

fall  in  with  economic  demand,  while  avoiding  its  narrow- 

[280] 


Domestic  Science  Labor atorv,  Talladega  College 


Blacksmith   Shop,  Tougaloo    LMvehsu  v 


NEGRO    EDUCATION 


ness  and  lack  of  heart.  Democratic  education  in  America 
will  undoubtedly  be  secured  in  the  future  through  a  multi- 
plication of  special  schools  so  as  to  match  the  needs  of  all 
social  classes.  This  should  be  cordially  admitted  for  the 
negro.  His  friends  should  welcome  all  existing  interest  in 
his  industrial  education  while  profoundly  distrusting  much 
of  its  motive  —  both  Northern  and  Southern. 


III.    EXPERT  INTERPRETATIONS   OF    THE   LESSONS 
OF  EXPERIENCE 

Apart  from  its  epoch-making  but  untheoretical  experi- 
ments with  the  training  of  the  negro,  America  has  practi- 
English  and  cally  no  experience  in  industrial  education, 
Continental  either  sufficiently  old  or  extensive  to  be  en- 
Expenence  lightening.     England  and  the  Continent  are 

more  fruitful,  and  the  lessons  of  their  policies  are  recently 
made  available  through  current  educational  discussions, 
notably  by  the  Report  of  the  Massachusetts  Commission 
on  Industrial  and  Technical  Education. 

All  experience  unites  to  commend  Browning's  counsel, 

"Oh,  if  we  draw  a  circle  premature, 
Heedless  of  far  gain. 
Greedy  for  quick  returns  of  profit,  sure, 
Bad  is  our  bargain!" 

Thus  the  application  of  the  vocational  idea  to  the  ele- 
mentary school  consists  simply  in  keeping  its  general 
The  Elemen-  spirit  in  touch  with  the  practicalities  of  the 
tary  School  child's  life.  The  illustrations  and  activities 
of  the  school  day  should  relate  to  the  life  of  his  parents 
and  community  and  his  own  probable  future.  Problems 
in  arithmetic,  for  example,  should  be  such  as  a  child  will 
be  likely  to  meet  as  one  of  the  world's  workers.     He  should 

[281] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTEUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

have  nature  study,  gardening,  manual  training ;  but  upon 
all  this  educational  authorities  insist,  on  strictly  peda- 
gogical grounds,  without  any  hint  of  vocational  motive. 
In  short  the  vocational  method  as  such  does  not  apply  to 
the  elementary  school.  All  experts  agree  that  no  sort  of 
specific  trades  instruction  should  begin  before  the  child 
is  twelve. 

For  the  youth  who  is  between  the  ages  of  twelve  and 
fifteen  it  is  agreed  that  industrial  education  should  be 
The  Lower  distinctly  vocational,  but  not  technical.    This 

Secondary  distinction  means  that  the  schools  should  im- 

School  part  general  rather  than  specialized  indus- 

trial skill,  and  at  the  same  time  maintain  in  full  measure 
the  other  elements  of  education  —  cultural,  humanistic, 
and  manual.  The  Report  of  the  English  Consultative 
Committee  on  Higher  Elementary  Schools  (1906)  is  es- 
pecially adverse  to  specialization  within  these  years.  Em- 
ployers, it  says,  are  unanimously  against  it  on  practical 
grounds.  Even  commercial  technique  (stenography  and 
typewriting),  which  requires  slight  manual  effort,  can- 
not wisely  be  undertaken  yet.  Skill  must  come  first  in 
processes  involving  only  the  simple,  coarser,  and  more 
massive  muscular  coordinations.  There  should  be  special 
pre-occupational  schools  for  those  classes  of  pupils  who 
are  later  to  learn  trades,  teaching  them  fundamental  in- 
dustrial processes  ;  but  technical  trade-methods  are  neither 
psychologically  nor  practically  as  yet  justified. 

In  virtual  agreement  the  Massachusetts  Commission's 
Report  declares  that,  while  short-cut  trade-courses  for 
younger  pupils  at  first  increase  their  productive  wage- 
earning  power,  yet  the  "  child  commencing  at  sixteen 
overtakes  his  brother  beginning  at  fourteen  in  two  years." 

More  particularly  it  specifies: 

[282] 


NEGRO    EDUCATION 


That  the  responsibihty  of  the  child  is  not  devel- 
oped is  declared  to  be  the  weakness  of  such  schools. 
The  employer  has  discovered  by  bitter  experience  that 
the  fourteen  to  sixteen-year-old  child  is  physically  un- 
developed, and  irresponsible  for  any  sort  of  work 
except  the  actually  unskilled. 

The  development  of  poKcy  in  the  industrial  world 
and  the  experience  of  educators  shows  that  the  pro- 
ductive power  of  the  child  before  fourteen  is  nega- 
tive, and  that  it  has  not  the  power  to  handle  any- 
thing but  the  simplest  processes  in  the  simplest  and 
smallest  way;  that  from  fourteen  to  sixteen  he  is  of 
productive  power  only  for  the  large  processes  of 
manufacture,  or  for  errand  work;  but  that  the  child 
in  those  years,  by  teaching,  may  gain  the  principles 
of  industrial  work,  which  may  be  put  into  practise 
after  sixteen ;  that,  therefore,  the  training  before 
fourteen  should  be  in  the  simpler  practical  lines  only ; 
that  between  fourteen  and  sixteen  it  should  combine 
the  practical  training  in  specific  industries  with  aca- 
demic work,  as  applied  to  the  industrial  problems,  to 
develop   intelligence  and  responsibility. 

After  sixteen  the  pupil  may  wisely  enter  upon  different 
trades  education,  but  even  then  the  acquirement  of  genuine 
Higher  Second-  industrial  efficiency  is  no  slight  task.  Mod- 
ary  Schools  em,  and  especially  American,  industry  is  so 
excessively  specialized  that  men  do  not  live  by  trades  but 
by  branches  of  trades.  "  If  they  are  manufacturing  shoes 
of  the  heaviest  kind  in  one  district  and  of  the  lightest 
kind  in  another,  the  teaching  must  be  adapted  to  each 
place  separately."     The  expert  further  continues  thus: 

We  do  not  say  to  the  artisan  students.  You  shall 
be  acquainted  practically  with  the  whole  trade ;  but 
we  say,  There  are  some  things  in  the  shoe-trade  that. 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

if  you  claim  to  be  an  intelligent  worker  and  desire  to 
advance,  you  should  be  acquainted  with.  We  have  put 
those  subjects  in  a  general  section.  At  the  same  time 
we  say  there  are  also  some  subjects  in  which  you  will 
no  doubt  wish  to  qualify  as  a  practical  man  and  get 
your  living  by  it.  We  allow  you  to  select  any  one 
of  these  special  subjects. 

Thus  even  the  trade-school  has  its  general  and  its 
special  courses,  and  even  when  they  are  finished  the  trade 
is  not  acquired.  No  mere  school  training  is  sufficient 
for  that.  Sir  William  Mathers,  who  headed  a  committee 
of  the  British  Parhament  to  investigate  industrial  edu- 
cation throughout  the  civilized  world,  brought  his  wisdom 
to  the  Massachusetts  inquiry.     His  last  words  were  these: 

Please  take  notice  of  what  I  said  about  the  avoid- 
ance of  teaching  a  trade  to  the  extent  of  causing  a 
lad  to  say,  after  leaving  the  industrial  school,  "  I 
am  a  printer,"  "  I  am  a  cotton-spinner,"  "  I  am  a 
mechanic  or  a  carpenter."  In  the  first  place,  it  is 
detrimental  to  the  lad's  own  interests.  He  becomes 
somewhat  conceited  before  he  has  got  through  the 
proper  training  by  actual  practise.  It  tends  to  de- 
terioration of  skill  and  intelligence  in  trades,  which 
can  only  be  fully  acquired  through  work  done  on  a 
commercial  scale.  It  will  tend  to  discredit  industrial 
education.^ 

Similarly,  in  the  light  of  the  best  American  experience, 
Mr.  Charles  F.  Warner  of  the  Springfield  (Mass.)  Tech- 
nical High  School  says: 

Whatever  method  of  teaching  trades  in  schools  may 
be  adopted,  provision  should  be  made  for  continuing 

*  Report  of  the  Commission  on  Industrial  and  Technical  Education, 
p.  164. 

[284] 


NEGRO    EDUCATION 


the  training  by  at  least  one  year  of  work  under 
actual  shop  or  factory  conditions ;  and  no  certificate 
of  proficiency  should  be  granted  until  this  require- 
ment has  been  satisfactorily  met.^ 

The  application  of  these  lessons  to  the  education  of 
the  negro  must  of  course  allow  for  his  peculiar  social  and 
AddIi  f  f  industrial  situation  in  the  South.  He  hves  in 
these  Lessons  an  industrially  backward  section,  one  given 
to  Negro  largely  to  agricultural  pursuits.     His  lot  is 

by  no  means  that  of  the  Northern  urban 
populations.  Nature  is  inexorable ;  she  may  be  hurt 
but  not  hurried;  the  psychological  objection  to  prema- 
ture specialization  is  as  great  for  him  as  for  any  other 
race.  But  social  policy  must  have  regard  to  the  pecu- 
liar environment  in  which  he  must  work  his  way.  Much 
might  have  been  said  yesterday  showing  that  the  expe- 
rience of  the  older  civilizations  does  not  apply  to  his 
case. 

But  the  South  is  not  standing  still.  Already  its  in- 
dustry and  agriculture  respond  to,  where  they  do  not  lead, 
modern  progress.  The  peculiar  and  critical  mission  of 
industrial  education  is  to  the  exceptional  man  exactly  as 
is  that  of  the  colleges.  Its  unique  justification  is  that 
it  serves  the  negro  in  a  crisis.  He  is  as  yet  economi- 
cally indispensable  to  the  South,  but  his  opportunities, 
especially  in  skilled  labor,  are  menaced.  The  race  needs 
industrial  leaders  to  lead  their  people  into  efficiency.  With- 
out this  they  will  certainly  fail  in  competitions  now  im- 
pending. Just  so  far  as  the  South  becomes  modernized, 
the    negro    is    thrust    into    the    world's    struggle.      The 

*  Report  of  the  Commission  on  Industrial  and  Technical  Education, 
p.  190. 

[285] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

preparation  of  his  people  to  meet  this  struggle  is 
Mr.  Washington's  central  idea,  which  he  has  by  no  means 
as  yet  satisfied  at  Tuskegee.     He  says: 

Just  now  the  need  is  not  so  much  for  the  com- 
mon carpenters,  brick-masons,  farmers,  and  laundry- 
women  as  for  industrial  leaders,  who,  in  addition  to 
their  practical  knowledge  can  draw  plans,  make  es- 
timates, take  contracts ;  those  who  understand  the 
latest  methods  of  truck-gardening  and  the  science 
underlying  practical  agriculture;  those  who  under- 
stand machinery  to  the  extent  that  they  can  operate 
steam  and  electric  laundries,  so  that  our  women  can 
hold  on  to  the  laundry  work  in  the  South,  that  is 
so  fast  drifting  into  the  hands  of  others  in  the  large 
cities  and  towns.^ 

This  tallies  exactly  with  the  doctrines  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Commission :  "  Our  technical  colleges  have  pro- 
duced superintendents  —  captains  of  industry ;  there  are 
plenty  of  helpers  and  lumpers  and  young  labor  among  the 
rank  and  file  of  the  army,  but  there  are  no  expert  journey- 
men, second-hands,  foremen."  ^ 

The  demand,  then,  is  for  highly  skilled  men.  No  second- 
rate  industrial  education  fits  the  negro's  case.  It  must 
give  him  genuine  efficiency  in  accordance  with  the  rapidly 
advancing  standards  of  his  economic  life. 

This  principle  immediately  rules  out  much  that  the 
Inadeauacv  of  South  understands  and  means  by  industrial 
the  South's  education  for  the  negro ;  such  crude  pro- 
Version  posals,  for  example,  as  the  following  from 
Governor  Hoke  Smith  of  Georgia: 

'  Washington,  "  The  Future  of  the  American  Negro,"  p.  81. 
2  P.  90. 

[  286  ] 


NEGRO    EDUCATION 


TEACH    NEGROES    TO    WORK 

There  Is  one  suggestion  which  I  desire  to  make, 
which  I  have  made  before,  and  which  I  wish  again  to 
make  with  reference  to  the  negro  schools  in  rural 
sections. 

Education  to  be  useful  must  have  In  view  definitely 
the  future  of  the  child  and  the  condition  of  the  child. 
I  believe  that  the  negro  school,  to  be  of  any  benefit 
to  the  negroes,  ought  to  teach  them  how  to  work. 
I  commend  to  the  county  boards  of  Georgia  the  pro- 
priety of  requiring  that  a  considerable  portion  of 
the  time  at  the  negro  schools  be  given  to  actual  labor. 
The  land  immediately  by  the  schoolhouse  could,  in 
most  instances,  be  utilized  for  the  labor,  which  should 
constitute  a  large  part  of  the  training  which  the 
young  negroes  receive  in  the  rural  schools. 

The  negro  should  be  taught  how  to  put  the  land 
in  proper  condition,  how  to  protect  it  from  washing, 
how  to  cultivate  it  so  deep  that  moisture  can  come 
to  the  roots  of  the  plants  from  below,  and  should 
be  made  to  do  the  work  during  the  school  hours.  In- 
struction of  this  kind  can  be  given  with  practically 
little  expense  and  the  time  taken  away  from  book 
study  will  be  worth  more  to  the  negroes  than  the  time 
given  to  book  studies.-^ 

This  means  that  the  negro  child  shall  be  taught  the 
habit  of  industry  —  which  is  well ;  but  it  assumes  that  his 
life  will  continue  to  be  narrow  in  ambition  and  outlook. 
In  opposition  to  such  a  policy  the  best  interests  of  true 
industrial  efficiency,  as  well  as  all  larger  human  standards, 
demand  that  the  negro  child  In  the  common  school  be  in- 
structed as  any  other  child  is,  in  the  rudiments  of  human 

'  Report  of  an  Address  at  Summerville,  Ga.,  September  14,  1907. 

— —  - 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

knowledge.  Manual  and  agricultural  practise  should  not 
be  absent.  All  instruction,  indeed,  should  be  based  on  ac- 
tivity, but  for  psychological,  not  racial,  reasons.  No  one 
can  be  taught  to  work  well  by  being  worked  too  young. 
The  elementary  schools  should  be  vocational  in  atmos- 
phere, but  not  technical  in  method.  And  Governor  Smith 
does  well  to  conclude,  "  I  do  not  pretend  to  have  worked 
out  the  problem  in  detail." 

In  negro  city  high  schools,  in  which  pupils  of  a  given 

grade  do  not  vary  greatly  in  age  from  those  of  similar 

white  schools,  there  are  the  same  objections 

need  such  —  both  educational  and  industrial  —  to  pre- 

Schools  as  do      mature     specialization,     as     European     and 

Corresponding  Northern  experience  has  discovered.  Actual 
Whites  . 

trades  technique  should  not  be  begun  before 

the  last  years  of  the  high  school.     Yet  the  South,  while 

it  professes   to  want  the  negro  to  be  well  trained  as  a 

worker,  flies  in  the  face  of  all  educational  counsels  in  not 

generally  admitting  his  right  to  a  sufficient  preliminary 

schooling.      In  general  it   provides   him   no   high  school 

at  all. 

In  the  rural  secondary  schools  for  negroes  the  physical 
and  psychological  objections  to  speciahzation  are  largely 
The  Case  of  overcome  by  the  greater  age  of  the  pupils. 
Rural  Second-  These  pupils  are  frequently  old  enough  in 
ary  Schools  years  to  begin  the  acquirement  of  their 
trades  at  once.  This  they  have  all  along  been  doing  at 
Hampton  and  Tuskegee.  Nature  permits  it,  but  the  social 
and  economic  wisdom  of  such  a  policy  is  open  to  ques- 
tion on  three  grounds. 

First:  Modern  industrial  efficiency  demands  an  ever 
broader  general  intelligence  in  the  worker.  England  has 
found  it  necessary  to  give  its  Reform  School  boys  culture 

[288] 


NEGRO    EDUCATION 


studies  to  make  good  their  trades  skill.  Germany  has 
outdistanced  the  world  commercially  and  industrially  by 
The  Negro  giving    the    maximum    of    general    education 

fails  from  Lack  along  with  high  technical  training.  In  ad- 
^o.  '^  ^  sence  jesting  himself  to  his  changing  social  condi- 
from  Lack  of  tions,  the  negro  has  as  often  failed  through 
Skill  lack   of  intelligence   and  integrity   in   social 

relations  as  through  deficiency  in  special  skill.  Entangled 
as  his  practical  problem  is  by  the  complicating  color-line, 
he  needs  an  education  which  develops  the  broader  eco- 
nomic virtues,  involving  both  knowledge  and  character. 
To  take  the  simplest  case,  no  matter  how  good  a  work- 
man he  is,  unless  he  can  "  figure  "  he  is  sure  to  be  beaten 
cut  of  his  earnings ;  unless  he  has  decided  moral  and  social 
resources  he  will  be  debarred  from  the  trade  union. 

Second:  Remember  that  the  supreme  function  of  in- 
dustrial education  just  now  is  to  train  negroes  who  can 
lead  their  race  through  an  industrial  crisis. 
Schools  fail  to  This  involves  something  more  than  skill,  and 
Train  Proper  this  "  something  more "  existing  schools 
Industrial  largely    fail    to    give.      The   American    Mis- 

sionary Association  employs  annually  more 
than  fifty  industrial  teachers,  more  than  half  of  whom  are 
negroes.  It  has  found  difficulty  in  using  the  average 
graduate  of  Hampton  and  Tuskegee  in  such  capacities. 
This  is  not  strange  in  the  light  of  the  report  of  190T  by 
Principal  Frissell  of  the  former  institution: 

Nearly  seventy-five  per  cent  of  the  boys  are  in  the 
night  school,  giving  their  days  to  the  trades  or 
agriculture.  Many  of  them  leave  the  school  after 
having  learned  their  trades,  although  they  have  only 
completed  a  year  and  a  half  of  the  four  years'  aca- 
demic course.     Last  May,  sixty-three  boys  were  candi- 

19  [  289  ] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

dates  for  trade  certificates ;  of  these  only  three  were 
candidates  for  the  academic  diploma ;  nineteen  re- 
turned to  go  on  with  their  studies,  and  forty-one  did 
not  return.  It  is  most  desirable  that  a  larger  num- 
ber of  trades  students  should  complete  the  full  aca- 
demic course  and  graduate  with  the  school's  diploma. 
The  academic  superintendent  feels  that  while  the 
trade-school  boys  receive  too  little  academic  training, 
the  day  school  boys  receive  too  little  industrial  train- 
ing. Progress  has  been  made  in  combining  academic 
and  industrial  training  but  the  problem  is  not  yet 
solved  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  school  authorities. 

Educationally  interpreted,  the  facts  thus  confessed  mean 
that  forty-one  students  with  trades  certificates,  but  with- 
out an  ordinary  common  school  education,  went  out  from 
Hampton  in  1906.  If  the  nineteen  who  returned  could 
have  finished  their  academic  course  there,  they  would  still 
scarcely  have  begun  standard  secondary  work.  Such  re- 
sults are  not  meeting  the  ideals  of  industrial  education 
as  recognized  by  the  best  educational  authorities. 

Might  Hampton  and  Tuskegee  not  supply  successful 
craftsmen  though  not  good  teachers?  Yes,  but  not  effi- 
cient industrial  leaders.  The  inability  to  organize  and 
communicate  their  special  skill,  and  weakness  in  the  man- 
agement of  men,  condemn  them  as  race-saviors  in  an  age 
of  industrial  revolution,  of  a  "  new  agriculture,"  of  an 
ever-deepening  envolvement  of  economic  in  social  and  racial 
problems.  They  have  been  educated  under  arbitrary  con- 
ditions —  far  from  home  problems  —  and  are  at  a  loss 
to  apply  their  educational  achievements  to  the  small  re- 
sources and  limited  opportunity  of  the  average  negro 
community.  This  is  the  common  difficulty  of  all  school- 
trained  skill,  which  pupils  of  all  races  have  to  overcome. 

[290] 


NEGRO    EDUCATION 


But  in  the  case  of  the  negro  industrial-school  graduate 
the  defect  is  deeper.  He  has  generally  not  acquired  the 
inner  means  of  making  practical  readjustments.  He  has 
—  to  borrow  Dean  Russell's  distinction  —  the  "  educa- 
tion of  habit,"  but  not  the  "  education  of  insight." 

But  what  the  average  Southerner  —  and  probably  the 
average  Northerner  —  means  by  industrial  education  is 
the  education  of  habit,  such  teaching  as  enables  a  man  to 
work  by  rule  and  rote ;  to  work  as  profitably  as  possible 
under  fixed  social  limitations ;  in  brief,  to  perpetuate  the 
rule  of  some  class  and  trade-tradition  of  a  departed  or 
departing  age.  This  does  not  at  all  meet  Mr.  Washing- 
ton's sense  of  his  people's  needs,  and  is  what  Hampton 
is  confessedly  trying  to  get  away  from.  It  is  not  a 
criticism,  then,  of  the  best  ideals  of  these  greater  negro 
industrial  schools,  but  only  of  their  average  present 
achievement,  to  record  that  the  Association  has  usually 
found  its  effective  industrial  teachers  and  organizers  in 
the  more  thoroughly  educated  graduates  of  its  own  schools. 
These  have  frequently  been  deficient  in  technique,  but  such 
deficiencies  have  been  more  than  made  up  by  their  broader 
theoretical  background,  and  by  the  more  practical  char- 
acter of  their  apprenticeships  in  the  daily  work  and  actual 
building  up  of  institutions.  Such  experience  has  devel- 
oped adaptability  and  resourcefulness.  The  industrial 
schools  themselves  have  always  found  their  best  teachers 
among  college  and  university  graduates.  Without  such 
neither  Hampton  nor  Tuskegee  could  run  for  a  day. 
A  Fisk  collegiate  graduate  is  now  at  the  head  of  the 
J.  K.  Brick  Industrial  School,  at  Enfield,  North  Carolina. 
He  has  managed  some  highly  difficult  feats  of  rural  en- 
gineering on  the  school's  eleven-hundred-acre  domains  and 
has   set   up   engines   in   its   shops   which   are   the   wonder 

[291] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

of  the  white  neighborhood.  They  ask,  "  Where  did  you 
learn  it?  "     He  rephes,  "  Oh,  studying  Greek  at  Fisk." 

Finally,  mere  industrial  education  fails  most  signifi- 
cantly because  it  cannot  supply  motive  to  industry.  It 
is  vain  to  teach  better  methods  of  production  to  those  who 
can  already  produce  more  than  they  know  how  to  want 
or  to  use.  The  psychological  problem  of  inefficiency  is 
really  more  serious  than  the  economic  problem.  At  this 
point  particularly  the  negro  fails.  He  is  often  content 
to  live  for  five  days  on  the  earnings  of  two.  He  must 
be  led  to  want  more  before  he  can  be  made  to  work  more. 
The  problem  of  consumption  is  prior  to  that  of  produc- 
tion, as  hunger  is  prior  to  hunting.  Even  for,  perhaps 
especially  for,  the  poor  man,  an  awakening  imagination 
is  the  root-cure  of  practical  ills.  Armstrong  supplied  this 
dynamic  by  the  infection  of  his  own  religious  and  moral 
genius.  Every  teacher  must  supply  it  somehow.  It  is  the 
final  justification  of  the  cultural  and  ideal  elements  in 
education  that  they  create  incentives ;  they  give  a  scope 
to  life  which  necessitates  the  efficient  making  of  a  liveli- 
hood for  its  fulfilment. 

No  "  blind  alleys,"  then,  are  wanted  in  negro  education. 
No  amount  of  increased  production  through  industrial 
efficiency  could  repay  the  loss  to  society  if  the  schools 
should  hold  to  lower  levels  men  whom  nature  had  destined 
for  leaders.  Georgia,  in  instituting  the  nation's  most  ex- 
tensive experiment  in  agricultural  secondary  education, 
was  wisely  aUve  to  such  a  danger  with  respect  to  a  part 
of  its  citizens. 

We  were,  therefore,  to  arrange  for  technical  agri- 
cultural and  industrial  schools  of  secondary  grade 
which  would  provide  technical  occupational  training 
for  the  eighty-five  per  cent  of  the  young'  farmers  who 

[292] 


NEGRO    EDUCATION 


would  attend  no  higher  school,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
give  a  good  education  for  citizenship ;  open  at  the 
top,  so  that  the  other  fifteen  per  cent,  who  through 
ambition  and  fitness  should  desire  to  pursue  their 
studies  in  college,  might  do  so,  on  equal  terms  with 
pupils  from  other  schools.  The  law  forbids  the  re- 
striction of  the  farmer's  boy  and  girl  to  the  three 
R's  and  manual  labor;  it  forbids  the  shutting  of  the 
door  of  opportunity  to  those  as  the  means  of  keep- 
ing them  on  the  farm;  but  required  a  high  school 
course  equal  to  that  offered  in  technical  schools  for 
other  occupations  and  preparation  for  higher  col- 
lege training.^ 

The  report  significantly  adds: 

We  want  no  "  blind  alleys  "  nor  inferior  training 
for  the  white  youth  of  our  state. 

Shall  we  understand  by  implication  that  an  inferior 
training  is  good  enough  for  the  negro  youth?  No  one  will 
admit  it  who  sees  the  race's  need  for  competent  leader- 
ship of  its  own,  or  feels  its  right  to  lay  the  higher  products 
of  its  genius  in  the  lap  of  a  common  civilization. 

All  this  argues  that,  for  the  negro  as  well  as  for  the 
white,  specialized  industrial  education  should  be  based 
p,      ,    .  upon  and  postponed  until  after  a  thorough 

as  to  Negro  general  education  is  acquired.  This  general 
Industrial  education  should  include  the  manual  arts,  as 

tiducation  justified    alike    by   pedagogical    theory    and 

vocational  purpose,  but  should  not  enter  upon  technical 
trade-training.  For  the  actually  needy  classes,  earher 
specialization  is  justified  as  a  social  makeshift,  for  the 
same  reason  that  the  Manhattan  Trades  School  is  justified 

*  Report  of  J.  S.  Stewart,  p.  3. 

[293] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

in  New  York  City.  Even  Professor  Kelly  Miller,  author 
of  a  "  Brief  for  the  Higher  Education  of  the  Negro," 
advises  special  schools  for  domestic  service  in  Southern 
cities.  But  nature  imposes  physical  and  spiritual  penalties 
upon  short-cut  methods.  They  cannot  solve  the  negro's 
main  economic  problems,  nor  satisfy  the  ideals  of  indus- 
trial education,  let  alone  those  of  human  progress.  For 
a  very  few,  in  its  postgraduate  course,  Hampton  is  doing 
what  ought  to  be  done,  and  probably  as  well  as  it  has  ever 
been  done  anywhere.  For  example,  she  has  graduated 
seventeen  students  from  her  advanced  agricultural  course, 
which  approximates  the  ideal  of  a  secondary  industrial 
school.  Most  of  Hampton's  trades  courses,  however,  rep- 
resent, I  believe,  specialization  without  sufficient  general 
education,  as  do  Tuskegee's.  These  schools  are  willing  to 
give  the  negro  a  type  of  schooling  which  Georgia  is  un- 
willing to  give  to  even  the  humblest  of  its  white  children. 

On  the  contrary,  the  accepted  ideals  and  standards  of 
industrial  education,  as  they  have  been  worked  out  in  the 
general  educational  field,  agree  in  demanding  thorough 
general  preparation  for  technical  training.  The  trouble 
with  the  negro  trade-schools  is  that,  under  their  prac- 
tical and  sectional  limitations  of  the  past,  they  have  not 
even  been  practising  good  industrialism.  Yet  a  large 
part  of  the  nation  has  mistaken  or  approved  their  make- 
shifts as  a  permanent  policy  toward  a  handicapped  race. 

Now  when  the  ideal  of  this  chapter  is  popularized  and 
its  standard  practised,  when  it  is  made  the 
Ad^Sonof  ^^^^^  °^  appeal  for  money  and  money  is 
Ideals  of  spent  on  it  when  received,  the  old  contention 

Higher  ^f  the  partisans  of  higher  education  will  in 

all  its  substantial  elements  have  been  adopted. 
Except  in  temporary,  social-emergency  schools,  industrial 

[294] 


NEGRO    EDUCATION 


education  will  he  an  advanced  form  of  popular  schooling. 
In  policy  and  purpose  it  will  complement  rather  than  con- 
flict with  general  education.  No  sting  of  racial  implica- 
tion will  remain  in  it.  Democratic  opportunty  will  be 
allowed  by  groups  of  coordinate  institutions,  not  sacri- 
ficed by  inferior  schools  for  the  poor.  The  technical  and 
agricultural  college,  neither  of  which  yet  exists  for  ne- 
groes, will  take  its  place  beside  the  college  of  liberal  arts, 
as  independent  institutions  or  as  a  department  of  the  great 
negro  university  of  the  future. 


rV.    PRINCIPLES    OF   DEMOCRATIC    EDUCATION 

In  the  light  of  these  leisurely  approaches,  first  histor- 
ical, then  educational,  a  group  of  principles  emerges. 
They  are  controlling  for  negro  education  only  because 
true  for  all.  They  may  here  be  enumerated  and  briefly 
characterized. 

1.  Of  course,  democracy  must  be  true  to  its  genius. 
It  must  conceive  education  as  a  means  of  equalizing  op- 
A  Policy  of  portunity,  of  assimilating  incomplete  Ameri- 
Education  for  cans  to  the  best  national  type,  and  endowing 
a  Democracy  them  with  their  full  social  heredity  as  sons 
of  this  crowning  age.  No  expression  of  this  principle 
could  be  nobler  than  the  recent  declaration  of  the  Southern 
Educational  Association  (1907)  : 

(1)  All  children,  regardless  of  race,  creed,  sex,  or 
the  social  station  or  economic  condition  of  their  par- 
ents, have  equal  right  to,  and  should  have  equal  op- 
portunity for,  such  education  as  will  develop  to  the 
fullest  possible  degree  all  that  is  best  in  their  indi- 
vidual natures,  and  fit  them  for  the  duties  of  life  and 

[295] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

citizenship  in  the  age  and  community  in  which  they 
live. 

(2)  To  secure  this  right  and  provide  this  oppor- 
tunity to  all  children  is  the  first  and  highest  duty  of 
the  modern  democratic  state,  and  the  highest  economic 
wisdom  of  an  industrial  age  and  community.  With- 
out universal  education  of  the  best  and  highest  type 
there  can  be  no  real  democracy,  either  political  or 
social;  nor  can  agriculture,  manufactures,  or  com- 
merce ever  attain  their  highest  development. 

(3)  Education  in  all  grades  and  in  all  legitimate 
directions,  being  for  the  public  good,  the  public  should 
bear  the  burden  of  it.  The  most  just  taxes  levied 
by  the  State,  or  within  the  authority  of  the  State  or 
of  any  smaller  political  division,  are  those  levied  for 
the  support  of  education.  No  expenditures  can  pos- 
sibly produce  greater  returns  and  none  should  be  more 
liberal.^ 

2.  Education  as  a  social  policy  must  follow  probabili- 
ties while  keeping  an  open  door  to  possibihties.  It  must 
therefore  be  adapted  to  the  special  needs  as  well  as  to  the 
general  needs  of  the  people.  A  wise  democracy  will  not 
offer  its  masses  merely  the  schools  of  the  professional  or 
leisure  classes,  but  will  multiply  class  schools  until  there 
are  enough  to  go  around,  and  thus  one  to  fit  each  Ameri- 
can group. 

3.  As  an  invitation  to  the  fairer  possibilities  —  because 
the  best  wealth  of  a  nation  is  always  its  poor  boys  —  all 
these  diverse  groups  of  schools  will  be  "  open  at  the  top." 
The  State,  as  destiny,  must  never  forbid  the  university  to 
any  child  because  he  is  poor  or  black. 

4.  A  just  educational  policy  toward  any  group  which 
has  recently  suffered,  or  is  suffering  from  social  repres- 

*  Quoted  by  Baker,  "  Following  the  Color-Line,"  pp.  284-285. 

[296] 


NEGRO    EDUCATION 


sion,  must  seek  to  find  adjustment,  not  to  its  present  frag- 
mentary and  distorted  manifestations  of  natural  capaci- 
ties and  traits,  but  to  its  future  completely  emancipated 
mind  and  genius.  The  immediate  task  of  education  with 
respect  to  such  a  group  must  be  to  rouse  and  discover 
that  suppressed  capacity.  I  am  afraid  that  the  justest 
and  most  generous  thought  of  the  South  does  not  give 
this  consideration  due  weight  as  regards  the  negro.  The 
ninth  resolution  of  the  Southern  Educational  Association 
on  negro  education  was  as  follows: 

On  account  of  economic  and  psychological  differ- 
ences in  the  two  races,  we  believe  that  there  should 
be  a  difference  in  courses  of  study  and  methods  of 
teaching,  and  that  there  should  be  such  an  adjust- 
ment of  school  curricula  as  shall  meet  the  evident 
needs  of  negro  youth. ^ 

This  needs  examination  and  elucidation.  In  the  first 
place,  millions  of  white  Americans,  and  in  the  South,  have 
an  economic  status  exactly  parallel  to  that  of  the  negro. 
His  psychological  traits  are  largely  the  result  of  that 
status  and  are  shared  by  the  corresponding  white  groups. 
In  the  second  place,  the  differences  in  courses  of  study 
and  methods  of  teaching  might  easily  be  —  in  the  South 
would  inevitably  be  —  such  as  tend  to  fix  the  belated  group 
in  its  present  distorted  and  limited  mental  expression. 

The  woman-parallel  is  again  in  point.  The  deepest  dif- 
ficulty in  applying  the  ideal  of  vocational  education  relates 
to  her.  What  is  woman.?  At  any  rate  not  a  completed 
being.  President  Stanley  Hall,  the  psychologist,  ventures 
an  "  Outline  of  a  higher  education  for  girls  based  on  their 
nature  and  needs,  and  not  on  convention  or  the  demand 

^  Quoted  by  Baker,  "Following  the  Color-Line,"  p.  286. 

[297] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

of  feminists."  Her  scientific  training,  for  example,  should 
omit  the  theoretical  rigidity  and  advanced  technique  of 
the  man's  and  should  lay  stress  on  the  moral  and  es- 
thetic aspects  of  nature,  "  the  poetic  and  mythic  factors, 
and  some  glimpses  of  the  history  of  science."  ^  And  all 
along  the  line  her  education  should  suit  her  psychical 
peculiarities.  But  immediately  comes  the  anthropologist, 
Professor  Thomas,  to  exploit  the  "  adventitious  character 
of  woman,"  asserting  that  in  many  of  her  seemingly  most 
distinctive  traits  she  is  not  a  natural  but  a  social  product. 
Her  characteristic  mentality  is  only  her  inner  response 
to  her  social  status.  Like  the  negro  she  gains  her  ends 
by  deceit  and  Hes,  because  those  are  the  natural  —  and 
legitimate?  —  resources  of  unprivileged  classes.  She  is 
an  instinctive  dinger,  as  is  the  negro,  but  this  reflects  her 
long-time  economic  dependence.  Even  her  alleged  inca- 
pacity in  the  most  rigid  scientific  fields.  Professor  Thomas 
argues  at  length,^  is  a  cultural  rather  than  a  natural  lack. 
In  short,  the  mind  of  woman  is  the  result  of  centuries 
of  social  pressure.  Man's  thought  of  her  and  her  con- 
sequent thought  of  herself  have  restricted  and  artificial- 
ized  her  instinctive  character,  but  have  not  maimed  her 
mind  beyond  repair  through  freedom  and  opportunity. 
Professor  Thomas'  point  is  clinched  by  a  conclusion  from 
a  highly  scientific  study  hy  a  woman  of  the  psychological 
differences  of  the  sexes.^  A  program  for  the  education 
of  woman  cannot  therefore  be  made  until  the  true  woman 
is  recovered,  and  President  Hall  speaks  too  soon.  The 
evident  first  business  of  a  scheme  of  feminine  education 
is  to  find  the  true  woman. 

'  Cf.  "Adolescence,"  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xvii. 
^  "  Sex  and  Society,"  pp.  30-61. 
3  Ihid,  p.  257. 

[298] 


Theological  Gradua-jes,  Talladkga  College 


Trained  Nurses,  Talladega  College 


NEGRO    EDUCATION 


In  his  chapter  on  "  The  Mind  of  Woman  and  the  Lower 
Races,"  Professor  Thomas  directly  touches  on  the  present 
application  of  the  argument  to  the  negro.  The  general 
conclusion  is,  "  Differences  of  sex  will,  I  think,  hold  also 
for  differences  of  race." 

Well,  then,  a  program  of  negro  education  must  wait 
upon  the  recovery  of  the  true  negro,  upon  the  unloosing 
of  his  repressed  capacities,  the  unbinding  of  his  normal 
self.  First  find  your  man.  This  should  be  the  immediate 
business  of  education;  for  lack  of  it  any  policy  toward 
him  is  sure  to  blunder.  "  What  a  thing  is  when  its  be- 
coming is  completed,  that  we  call  the  nature  of  a  thing," 
said  Aristotle.  Because  strong  sentiment  in  the  nation 
persistently  urges  a  type  of  training  which  would  fix  the 
negro  in  his  incompleteness,  let  the  educator,  patriot,  an- 
thropologist each  beware.  This  is  the  crux  of  the 
problem. 

5.  When  this  central  issue  is  secure  it  freely  follows 
that  the  immediate  economic  and  practical  needs  of  any 
historically  peculiar  or  socially  handicapped  group  of 
Americans,  such  as  the  juvenile  delinquent,  the  Indian,  the 
immigrant's  child,  the  unskilled  worker,  may  dictate  a 
temporary  policy  of  special  training  for  them.  The  ac- 
tual employment  of  such  a  policy  can  be  justified  only 
by  a  detailed  sociological  study  of  their  actual  situation. 
But  such  a  study  reveals  that  the  negro's  case  is  not 
parallel  to  these  cited.  His  life  is  infinitely  broader  than 
that  of  any  social  group.  His  millions  contain  groups 
of  all  degrees  of  development.  The  only  analogy  for  him 
is  the  analogy  of  white  population  in  its  entirety.  He 
needs  not  one  but  all  kinds  of  American  education  for  the 
diverse  grades  and  classes  of  his  people. 

6.  The  profoundest  educational   right   of  any  people 

[299] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

is  the  right  to  have  its  inner  resources  of  character  util- 
ized for  its  own  uphft.  For  the  teacher  of  negroes  there 
should  be  no  commentary  here  like  his  own  heart. 

What  keeps  the  exceptional  and  gifted  man  at  liis  task, 
—  a  task  so  appeahng  yet  disheartening  as  that  of  the 
education  of  negroes  under  American  conditions?  What 
is  the  secret  of  victory  and  patience  for  Strieby  or  Curry, 
Armstrong  or  Cravath?  Nothing  short  of  some  personal 
version  of  that  experience  to  which  Matthew  Arnold  testi- 
fies in  his  "  East  London." 

"I  met  a  preacher  there  I  knew,  and  said  — 
'lU  and  o'erworked,  how  fare  you  in  this  scene?' 
'  Bravely ! '  said  he ;  '  for  I  of  late  have  been 
Much  cheered  with  thoughts  of  Christ,  the  living  bread.' 

O  human  soul !  as  long  as  thou  canst  so 
Set  up  a  mark  of  everlasting  light. 
Above  the  howUng  senses'  ebb  and  flow. 

To  cheer  thee,  and  to  right  thee  if  thou  roam  — 
Not  with  lost  toil  thou  laborest  through  the  night ! 
Thou  mak'st  the  heaven  thou  hop'st  indeed  thy  home." 

In  other  words,  the  deepest  need  of  any  man  is  the  need 
to  have  the  inner  resources  of  his  own  character  released 
to  energize  his  service.  Equally  the  deepest  need  —  yes, 
right  —  of  any  race  is  to  have  its  inner  resources  utilized 
for  its  own  redemption.     It  is  the  only  way. 

As  to  the  negro,  this  is  denied.  He  is  contrasted,  to 
his  great  discredit,  with  the  Indian.  The  Indian  thwarted 
all  attempts  to  enslave  him  by  dying.  When  he  could 
no  longer  be  free  he  ceased  to  live.  The  negro,  on  the 
contrary,  thrived  in  servitude,  thus  showing,  it  is  alleged, 
his  essentially  servile  nature  and  adaptibility  to  external 
compulsion. 

But  there  is  more  than  one  way  to  resist  oppression, 

[300] 


NEGRO    EDUCATION 


as  a  glance  into  any  schoolroom  shows.  Here  and  there 
one  finds  the  child  rebel,  the  Indian  fiercely  resisting  by 
overt  acts  all  encroachments  upon  his  personality.  The 
more  usual  type  of  uncontrolled  pupil  is  the  mind-wander- 
ing, docile  child,  who  conforms  outwardly  and  inwardly 
follows  his  own  devices.  The  proud  teacher,  deceived  by 
appearances,  may  exclaim,  "  See  my  well-behaved  and  stu- 
dious thirty,"  when,  all  told,  she  has  hardly  the  equivalent 
of  one  child  at  work.  Nine-tenths  and  more  of  each, 
though  physically  present,  is  spiritually  absent  —  on  the 
ball-ground  or  some  other  juvenile  Island  of  the  Blessed. 
Limbs  and  lips  are  at  school  but  hearts  are  far  afield. 

Woman,  in  the  main,  has  followed  the  negro's  rather 
than  the  Indian's  method  of  resisting  oppression.  There 
have  been  a  few  feminine  revolutionists  and  radical  inno- 
vators ;  most  of  the  sex  have  seemed  to  yield  —  and  con- 
trived to  manage.  Woman  has  ruled  by  indirection,  but 
she  has  ruled. 

Now  the  lazy,  adaptive  negro  has  adjusted  himself  to 
necessity  exactly  as  our  wives  and  children  chiefly  do.  He 
has  given  the  minimum  of  work  and  obedience  necessary 
to  save  his  skin,  and  has  stubbornly  maintained  the  free- 
dom and  integrity  of  his  own  inner  life.  In  labor  power 
one  Northern  worker  was  worth  a  half  dozen  of  slave- 
time  plantation  hands  or  house  servants.  I  know  nothing 
more  creditable  to  the  negro's  humanity  than  this.  He 
has  never  worked  well  under  compulsion,  and,  before  God, 
I  hope  and  beheve  he  never  will.  Only  the  full  oppor- 
tunity of  American  manhood  will  prove  sufficient  to  sum- 
mon the  whole  negro  to  life's  task. 

Subject  groups,  whether  children,  women,  or  dependent 
races,  while  they  cannot  be  controlled  unless  their  own  souls 
are  enlisted  in  the  task,  may  be  and  have  been  warped  and 

[301] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

distorted  by  external  pressure.  It  can  hinder  but  cannot 
help.  It  never  succeeds.  The  modern  school  confesses 
that  when  it  fails  to  awaken  the  child's  own  interest  its 
failure  is  absolute.  Some  are  bold  to  believe  that  the 
world-wanderings  of  the  "  new  woman  "  will  lead  her  back 
to  many  of  her  old  tasks,  but  if  so  it  must  be  because  her 
heart  comes  around  to  them  again.  Her  return  cannot  be 
of  compulsion.  At  all  hazards  she  must  follow  the  inner 
light. 

The  question  of  incentive  is  equally  central  for  negro 
education.  Vocational  efficiency  in  the  long  run  must  be 
the  same  as  social  efficiency.  Train,  indeed,  for  the  child's 
"  actual  condition  in  life,"  but  be  quite  sure  that  condi- 
tion is  understood.  We  inhabit  many-storied  houses  and 
our  true  calling  is  to  occupy  them  throughout.  The 
effort  to  make  any  man  a  good  worker  without  making 
him  a  full  man  will  fail ;  and  could  it  succeed,  it  would 
but  give  us  a  bhnded  Samson  grinding  in  the  prison- 
house  of  spiritual  bondage. 


302] 


X.     THE    OLD    MEN    OF    THE 
MOUNTAINS 

FOR  six  years  the  fortunes  of  the  author  of  this  book 
were  identified  with  a  prosperous  and  progressive 
border  city  of  thirty  thousand  people.  It  was 
located  on  two  trunk  lines  of  railway,  giving  unusually 
direct  access  to  the  four  corners  of  the  Union.  It  sup- 
ported several  worthy  institutions  of  higher  learning  and 
was  surrounded  by  a  county  of  great  agricultural  pro- 
ductiveness; yet  most  of  the  tributary  country  within 
a  radius  of  a  hundred  miles  consisted  of  a  rough,  infertile 
land,  inhabited  by  a  decidedly  rude  and  under-developed 
population,  an  offshoot  of  the  larger  Appalachian  stock. 
No  equal  area  east  of  the  Great  Plains  had  so  small  a 
railroad  mileage.  I  have  sometimes  taken  friends,  repre- 
sentatives of  completer  civilizations,  on  hunting  or  fishing 
trips  through  this  back  country  and  have  afterward  been 
chagrined  at  the  accounts  of  it  they  have  written  for 
Eastern  papers  —  as  though  it  represented  my  environ- 
ment and  opportunities.  They  described  the  picturesquely 
primitive  as  they  saw  it,  but  forgot  to  record  the  common- 
place —  that  there  were  also  electric  lights,  colleges, 
wealth,  and  an  extremely  self-conscious  life  which  thought 
itself  as  good  as  any  in  America.  Having  thus  suffered 
with  their  kind,  from  the  confusion  of  the  injudicious,  I 
am  the  more  anxious  to  speak  of  the  people  of  the  South- 
em  Appalachians  with  discrimination,  justice,  and  pro- 
found appreciation. 

[303] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 


I.    THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  MOUNTAINS 

The  Southern  Appalachian  region  is  roughly  six  hun- 
dred miles  long  and  two  hundred  miles  broad.  It  includes 
GeoOTaphical*  ^"^^  hundred  and  twenty-six  counties  in  nine 
Southern  states   as   follows:    Maryland   4,  West  Vir- 

Appalachians  ginia  35,  Virginia  42,  eastern  Kentucky 
28,  eastern  Tennessee  and  the  Cumberland  Plateau  in 
middle  Tennessee  46,  western  North  Carolina  24,  north- 
western South  Carolina  4,  northern  Georgia  26,  north- 
central  Alabama  17.  Their  combined  area  is  101,880 
square  miles,  or  twice  as  large  as  the  state  of  New  York, 
and  their  gross  population  nearly  four  millions  of  people 
(1900). 

Their   average   civilization   is   decidedly   below  that    of 

the  general  standard   of  the   nation,   but   the   submerged 

fy         ,  minority,      whose      excessive      backwardness 

Unequal  "^ ' 

Development  greatly  depresses  the  average,  is  but  a 
of  their  fragment   of   the  whole.      Within   this    area 

ivi  za  ion  jj^^  some  of  the  most  vigorous  and  pro- 
gressive of  Southerners.  Not  only  is  the  great  Appa- 
lachian Valley,  running  from  Pennsylvania  to  Tennessee, 
one  of  the  most  ancient  of  national  thoroughfares  and  a 
most  poetical,  productive,  and  beautiful  region,  but  In 
the  Appalachian  province  are  located  mighty  industrial 
cities  like  Knoxville  and  Chattanooga,  Tennessee ;  Bristol, 
Virginia;  and  Birmingham,  Alabama;  while  just  at  its 
southern  border  Hes  Atlanta.  There  are  famous  health 
resorts  Hke  Asheville,  North  Carolina,  with  Its  magnificent 
Vanderbilt  estates  adjoining.  Appalachian  Tennessee 
even  boasts  of  four  ancient  colleges,  locally  renowned  and 
widely  useful,  three  of  them  dating  back  to  1795.  Much 
of  the  capital  which  has  developed  the  industries  of  these 

[304] 


THE    OLD    MEN    OF    THE    MOUNTAINS 

cities  and  smaller  centers  is  from  the  North  and  the  mix- 
ture in  them  of  Northern  and  Southern  population  and 
ideals  against  the  mountain  background  creates  one  of 
the  most  interesting  and  stimulating  of  American  envir- 
onments. Yet  even  these  progressive  centers  tell  the  tale 
of  their  human  sources  of  supply.  Knoxville  has  71.81 
illiterate  white  children  of  native  parents  per  thousand, 
Chattanooga  39.3,  Atlanta  34,  against  8  per  thousand  in 
the  most  backward  of  the  Northern  cities,  and  then  only 
in  regions  notoriously  affected  by  Southern  immigration.-^ 
Very  unequally  then,  within  this  general  area,  have  the 
mountains  been  a  barrier  to  participation  in  the  best  of 
national  life.  We  must  find  out  to  what  degree  and  dis- 
cover the  particular  local   areas   of  backwardness. 

A  glimpse  at  the  population  maps  in  the  volumes  of 
the  last  census  reveals  the  fact  that  the  mountains  are 
Areas  of  peopled  to  an  average  density  about  that  of 

Special  the    agricultural    states    of    the    Mississippi 

Backwardness  Valley  and  of  the  rural  South.  The  much 
exploited  feud-counties  of  Kentucky,  for  example,  have 
about  the  same  population  per  square  mile  as  Iowa.  Only 
in  West  Virginia,  in  small  areas  including  the  great 
Smoky  Mountain  between  North  Carolina  and  Tennessee, 
and  in  parts  of  the  Cumberland  Plateau  in  middle  Ten- 
nessee is  the  population  notably  slight;  while,  just  be- 
tween these  two  last-mentioned  areas,  the  valley  of  the  upper 
Tennessee  and  its  tributaries  has  been  since  1810  one  of 
the  most  densely  populated  of  American  regions  of  equal 
area.  Manifestly,  then,  isolation,  as  a  ground  of  back- 
wardness, is  present  in  very  unequal  degrees.  Other  cen- 
sus maps  show  great  unevenness  in  the  distribution  of 
improved  land,  of  agricultural  productiveness,  and  of 
»  Census  Bulletin  26,  p.  53. 
20  [  305  ] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

transportation  facilities,  while  the  statistics  of  manufac- 
turers show  similar  irregularities.  Wherever  there  are 
people,  farms,  railroads,  factories,  there  is  likely  to  be 
education,  an  ordinary  development  of  civilization,  and 
a  fair  degree  of  progress ;  but  where  deficiencies  in  all 
or  most  of  these  things  coincide  in  the  same  area  —  where 
there  are  few  people,  little  productive  land,  no  markets, 
no  industrial  development  —  one  finds,  in  all  of  these  nine 
Appalachian  states,  whole  counties  of  extreme  backward- 
ness of  life.  Throughout  all  of  this  area  there  exists  also 
a  submerged  class,  the  product  of  former  isolation  and 
lack  of  opportunity,  in  the  midst  of  the  generally  hopeful 
population.  Manifestly  the  true  strategy  of  philanthropy 
is  to  find  out  these  particular  areas  of  need  and  to  devise 
help  for  especially  backward  classes. 

The  various  attempts  at  a  numerical  estimate  of  these 

...  .  .  backward  classes  are  more  interestins;  than 
Attempts  at  .  .  ° 

Numerical  instructive.       To     tell     the     truth,     nobody 

Statements  of      knows ;    the  statistical  means  of  finding  out 
do  not  exist.     The  following  quotation  cer- 
tainly implies  a  gross  overstatement : 

Berea's  work  to-day  has  an  absorbing  interest  to 
the  scholar  and  the  patriot.  The  institution  has  dis- 
covered three  million  British  descendants  who  have 
been  in  a  very  real  sense  "  lost "  in  the  Southern 
mountains. 

Naturally,  it  is  possible  to  quibble  over  the  meaning  of 
being  lost,  but  in- no  just  sense  does  three-fourths  of  the 
Southern  Appalachian  population  constitute  a  specially 
needy  class  or  call  for  national  philanthropy.  On  the 
other  hand  the  following  from  an  experienced  educator 
in  the  mountains  as  surely  understates  the  case: 

[306] 


THE    OLD    MEN    OF    THE    MOUNTAINS 


Of  the  four  million  inhabitants  of  the  region  per- 
haps only  one-tenth  are  very  backward.  The  rest 
compare  favorably  with  the  inhabitants  of  any  other 
section. 

The  physiographer,  Brigham,  speaks  of  two  millions  of 
people  of  pure  American  stock  waiting  to  be  assimilated 
to  modera  conditions.^  President  Samuel  T.  Wilson  of 
Maryville  College,  Tennessee,  the  chief  Presbyterian  au- 
thority in  this  field,  writing  from  a  vantage-point  of  life- 
long intimacy  and  educational  service  for  the  mountain 
people,  ventures  to  guess  that  there  may  be  from  a  quar- 
ter to  half  a  million  of  the  lowest  and  really  degenerate 
class.^ 

President  Wilson  very  properly  defends  his  people 
against  the  charge  of  generally  inferior  character  and 
Compensations  intelligence,  and  insists  that  mountain  back- 
of  Back-  wardness  has   compensations  in  the   greater 

wardness  ruggedness    of    body    and    mind    preserved 

there,  the  resourceful  strength  and  the  absence  of  urban 
vices  and  follies,  with  their  train  of  too  strenuous  nerves 
and  tempers.  No  one  who  knows  the  mountaineer  will 
fail  to  make  these  allowances,  and  every  one  who  writes 
of  him  should  insist  that  his  readers  make  them  also. 
Illiteracy  by  no  means  always  indicates  lack  of  mental 
alertness.  I  recall  Uncle  Jimmy  Yeakley,  who  could 
neither  read  nor  write,  and  did  n't  much  need  to.  He 
could  remember  the  exact  terms  of  every  transfer  of  land 
back  to  the  beginning  of  records.  As  telephone-king  of 
his  region  he  had  strung  hundreds  of  miles  of  wire  from 
tree  to  tree  over  which  to  talk  with  his  neighbors;  thus 
avoiding  the  necessity  of  writing.     No  one  who  had  ever 

'  Brigham,  "  Geographical  Influences  in  American  History,"  p.  323. 
*  "The  Southern  Mountaineer,"  p.  38. 

[307] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION   IN    THE    SOUTH 

undertaken  business  dealings  with  him  doubted  Uncle 
Jimmy's  mental  capacity  afterward. 

How  far  is  the  backwardness  of  the  mountains  due  to 
inferiority  and  how  far  merely  to  lack  of  opportunity? 
jj      ,     .  This  is  their  deepest  problem.     To  some  ex- 

Backwardness  tent  undoubtedly  the  mountain  environment 
due  to  In-  has  been   selective,   choosing  for  itself  such 

enon  y  types    of   mind   and   character   as   preferred 

and  were  fitted  to  its  ruder  life.  To  get  the  bearings 
of  this  problem  we  need  to  take  a  more  accurate  look 
at  the  physiographical  peculiarities  of  the  Appalachian 
area. 

The  Great  Appalachian  Valley  is  recognized  by  geog- 
raphers as  the  axis  of  that  mountain  system.  For  de- 
tailed descriptions  of  its  internal  relations  the  reader  must 
consult  special  authorities ;  -^  but  it  is  at  least  possible 
to  note  that  all  the  true  mountains  —  typified  by  the 
peaks 't)f  the  Blue  Ridge  of  North  Carolina  —  lie  to  the 
south  and  east  of  this  valley;  while  a  larger  mountainous 
area  lying  to  the  north  and  west  of  it  —  the  so-called 
Alleghany  and  Cumberland  "  ranges  "  —  is  really  only 
a  prolonged  plateau.  Now,  curiously,  It  is  not  in  the 
true  mountains  with  their  higher  peaks,  their  broader  and 
deeper  valleys,  but  on  the  scarred  and  broken  top  of  this 
long-weathered  plateau  that  by  far  the  greater  part  of 
the  needy  mountain  population  Hes.  They  crossed  over 
and  around  the  true  mountains,  passed  the  fertile  and 
smiling  valley,  and  paused  in  the  rugged  Cumberlands, 
almost  in  sight  of  the  Blue  Grass  and  rich  Mississippi 
plains  —  hke  Moses  just  outside  of  the  Promised  Land. 

Why  did  they  not  go  on  and  complete  the  crossing,  the 
most  marvelous  and  epic  movement  of  American  history? 

'  Brigham,  "Geographical  Influences  in  American  History,"  p.  81. 
[3081 


THE    OLD    MEN    OF    THE    MOUNTAINS 

Why  did  they  stop  in  the  mountains  ?    Were  they  too  weak 

to  go  on?     Was  it  always  the  "  tragedy  of  the  broken 

„,    ,_  axle"?     Were  they   afraid?      All   of   these. 

The  Moun-  ^      ,  i        i     i  ...  , 

tain  People         ^^  ^'^^  ^"^  hand,  the  mountain  barrier  caught 

cannot  be  and  held  such  people  as  lacked  physical  re- 

7  sources  to  overcome  them.    On  the  other  hand, 

to  some  extent  at  least,  it  sifted  the  westward 
emigrant,  and  kept  the  less  energetic  and  resourceful  for 
its  own.  And,  indeed,  the  transition  was  not  easy.  It 
took  daring  to  meet  the  strange  conditions  of  the  plains, 
to  abandon  the  mountains  for  the  prairies.  The  tradition 
of  the  author's  family  tells  that  when  its  forbears  left 
the  Tennessee  mountains  for  a  prairie  state,  they  hunted 
out  a  spot  in  the  bluffs  of  the  Mississippi  River  and 
grubbed  out  a  farm  from  the  timber  while  thousands  of 
clear  acres  were  at  hand  for  the  asking.  For  the  moun- 
tains were  doubly  indispensable  to  the  imagination.  They 
both  overawed  and  won  the  hearts  of  their  children. 

Thus,  in  its  most  backward  areas,  the  mountain  stock 
represents  a  part  of  the  original  colonial  emigration  whose 
hearts  failed  at  the  sight  of  the  prairies ;  who  loved  hunt- 
ing and  fishing  and  the  rude  old  ways.  The  conserva- 
tive element  and  the  incapable  element  mixed  together,  be- 
came further  depressed  by  the  poverty  of  their  land,  and 
were  fixed  in  the  mental  traits  of  reckless  but  curiously 
unadventurous  men.  We  can  never  disentangle  the  in- 
fluences at  work  or  give  them  numerical  expression ;  but 
all  educational  effort  in  the  mountains  discovers  plenty  of 
natural  capacity  only  awaiting  opportunity,  along  with 
not  a  little  hopeless  stuff  sifted  out  and  left  behind  by 
the  sturdier  stream  of  American  progress.  Thus  part 
of  the  mountain  shiftlessness  may  be  removed  by  the  in- 
struction of  one  generation  in  rural  economy,  part  rests 

[  309  ] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

back  on  the  original  shiftlessness  which  left  its  victims  on 
the  far  side  of  the  hills  from  civilization;  part  of  its 
incapacity  utterly  disappears  when  the  tools  of  progress 
are  put  into  the  hands  of  its  youth,  part  persists  in  a 
deep-seated  nervelessness  and  apathy  before  the  more  com- 
plex demands  of  modem  life*  No  more  than  the  negroes 
can  the  mountain  people  be  saved  wholesale.  The  offer 
of  opportunity  only  compels  them  to  register  their  inner 
differences  and  thus  completes  the  ancient   sifting. 

In  terms  of  general  educational  need  the  problem 
Statistics  of  ^^  ^^^  mountains  has  been  most  carefully 
Educational  measured  by  the  Southern  Educational 
Deficiencies  Board. 


In  that  portion  of  West  Virginia,  Virginia,  Ken- 
tucky, North  Carolina,  Tennessee,   South  Carolina, 


LITERATES 

ILLITERATES 

PER   CENT 
ILLITERACY 

West  Virginia 

Virginia 

Kentucky 

North  Carolina 

East  Tennessee 

South  Carolina 

Georgia 

202,459 

107,790 

93,530 

102,918 

134,138 

42,577 

44,813 

24,229 
20,422 
25,851 
25,460 
30,127 
6,572 
9,651 

10.68 
15.94 
21.65 
19.83 
18.34 
13.37 
17.72 

Totals 

728,225 

142,312 

16.34 

and  Georgia?,  contained  between  the  foothills  of  the 
Blue  Ridge  on  the  east  and  those  of  the  Cumberland 


Primitive  Industry  of  the  Mountains 


Modern  Industry  ou  the  New  South 


THE    OLD    MEN    OF    THE    MOUNTAINS 

Mountains  on  the  west,  there  were  in  1900,  in  a  total 
number  of  870,537  male  whites  twenty-one  years  of 
age,  over  142,312  or  16.34  per  cent,  who  could  not 
read  and  write.  The  table  herewith  gives  the  figures 
for  the  Appalachian  section  of  each  state. 

Figures  for  illiteracy  may  not  be  very  accurate,  but 
where  sixteen  per  cent  of  the  white  voters  report 
themselves  to  the  census  as  illiterate,  it  means  that  at 
least  fifty  per  cent  of  the  white  population  over  ten 
years  of  age  is  wholly  without  letters.^ 

The  case  of  a  typical  mountain  county,  Harlan,  Ken- 
tucky, reveals  both  extreme  educational  poverty  and  rapid 
A  Typical  recent  progress.     This  county  has  fifty-nine 

Kentucky  districts,  none  of  which  previous  to  1904  had 

County  ^  graded  school  nor  one  with  as  much  as  a 

six  months'  term.  Even  according  to  Southern  standards 
its  teachers  were  miserably  prepared.  Half  of  its  fifty- 
three  schoolhouses  were  built  of  logs,  and  the  total  value 
of  the  fifty-three  was  less  than  ten  thousand  dollars.  Not 
three-fourths  of  its  school  population  was  enrolled,  and 
the  average  attendance  was  but  forty  per  cent  of  the 
enumeration.  Its  only  graded  and  reasonably  efficient 
schools  were  two  conducted  by  missionary  societies,  each 
of  which  had  four  or  five  teachers.  It  will  be  noted  that 
the  county  did  not  lack  for  schoolhouses,  such  as  they 
.were.  Indeed  there  were  altogether  too  many.  But  meas- 
ured by  any  reasonable  standard  its  educational  deficien- 
cies were  awful  to  contemplate.  Its  school  period  was  far 
too  short,  its  teachers  wofully  inferior,  its  facilities  ridicu- 
lously inadequate;  besides,  half  of  its  children  were  not 
using  even  such  opportunities  as  were  afforded.  Probably 
more  than  fifty  per  cent  of  its  white  population  was  illit- 

'  Quoted  by  Wilson,  "  The  Southern  Mountaineers,"  p.  69. 

rsiTi 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

erate.  That  it  might  have  been  better  is  proved  by  the 
rapid  progress  since  1904.  In  a  single  year,  under  the 
inspiration  of  the  general  educational  revival  in  the  South, 
and  with  the  aid  of  state  funds,  ten  schools  lengthened 
their  terms  to  over  six  months,  a  considerable  proportion 
of  teachers  acquired  higher  grade  certificates,  salaries 
were  decidedly  advanced,  seven  new  schoolhouses  were 
built,  and  the  average  attendance  was  raised  to  seventy- 
seven  per  cent  of  the  enrolment.  Though  desperately 
poor,  Harlan  county  chiefly  needed  and  needs  stimulus 
from  without  and  a  practical  expression  of  its  solidarity 
with  the  more  favored  regions  of  its  state. 

II.    HOW  THE  MOUNTAIN  MAN  LIVES 

It  will  help  our  understanding  of  the  life  of  the  moun- 
tains to  study  Harlan  county  further  as  one  of  its  char- 
acteristic seats.    Its  many  streams  constitute 
The  Head- 
waters  of  the       ^^^    head-waters    of    the    Cumberland    river, 

Cumberland,  Surrounding  their  valleys  rises  an  almost 
a  Typical  unbroken    circle   of   mountains    cut    only    by 

distant  gaps  and  otherwise  crossed,  if  at  all, 
by  incredibly  rough  bridle-paths.  Within  this  encircling 
barrier  of  lesser  mountains  lies  the  great  Black  Range. 
On  either  side  are  Piedmont  valleys,  themselves  carved 
by  streams  into  lesser  valleys  two  thousand  feet  and  more 
deep.  The  mountains  have  narrow,  winding  crests  and 
steep  sides,  interrupted  here  and  there  where  some  ledge 
of  more  resistant  rock  has  remained  to  uphold  a  bench  or 
"cove"  of  gently  sloping  land  just  above  it.  Along  the 
lower  courses  of  the  greater  valleys  are  narrow  strips  of 
tillable  bottom  land  which  disappear  higher  up  into  broken 
gullies.     Farming  is  crowded  out  of  these  too-narrow  quar- 

[312] 


THE    OLD    MEN    OF    THE    MOUNTAINS 

ters  onto  the  lower  slopes  and  even  the  high  benches  of 
the  mountains. 

My  first  incursion  into  this  "  Lonesome  "  country  was 
on  a  magnificent  morning  in  November.  Before  light  I 
had  left  the  regular  railway  on  the  Virginia  side,  had 
boarded  a  coal  company's  train  for  a  dozen  miles'  ride 
over  a  rough  spur  of  track,  and  had  been  met  at  the  mines 
by  the  principal  of  the  Black  Mountain  Academy.  The 
mist  was  still  in  the  valleys  when  we  took  the  mail-carrier's 
trail  leading  over  the  very  ridge  of  the  Black  Range. 
More  than  once  we  were  forced  to  take  to  our  feet  and 
hands  while  the  horses  scrambled  up  the  trail  ahead  of 
us.  Two  hours  of  breathless  climbing  brought  us  to  the 
top,  where,  through  magnificent  portals  of  gray  rock,  we 
passed  into  Kentucky  and  began  the  descent,  the  path 
soon  finding  and  following  the  windings  of  a  mountain 
stream.  Into  this  snug  nook  even  winter  had  failed  to 
penetrate.  We  rode  under  great  chestnuts  still  in  leaf  and 
just  dropping  their  nuts.  The  wealth  of  laurel  and  rho- 
dodendron fohage  in  the  deeper  ravines  gave  the  land- 
scape almost  a  look  of  spring,  while  all  along  the  way  the 
holly  flamed  under  its  burden  of  berries. 

The  ragged  flanks  of  the  mountain  rising  on  either 
side  of  the  trail  nowhere  afforded  a  level  space  as  large 
The  Moun-  as  a  city  lot,  yet  we  passed  no  fewer 
tain  World  than    a    dozen    cabins    in   half   that    number 

of  miles.  Tliis  is  the  mountain  home.  It  clings  to 
its  steep  slope ;  frequently  it  consists  of  but  one  room ; 
usually  it  is  built  of  logs  and  rough  hand-split  shingles, 
its  chinks  and  chimney  being  daubed  with  mud.  It  is  uni- 
formly windowless,  though  perchance  furnished  with  a 
solid  shutter  or  two.  Its  surroundings  are  less  slovenly 
but   poorer  than   those   of  any   negro   settlement   I   have 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

ever  seen.  Attached  to  each  house  is  a  half  acre  or  less 
of  sickly  corn  patch,  clustered  among  the  gaunt  and  pro- 
testing ruins  of  the  forest.  The  Indian  was  cruel  to  trees 
as  well  as  to  man,  and  the  mountaineer  clears  his  field  by 
the  savage's  wasteful  method  of  girdling  the  standing 
timber,  which  remains  until  it  rots  and  falls.  All  "  carry- 
ing "  is  done  with  a  sure-footed  ox  and  sledge,  for  no 
wheeled  vehicle  could  possibly  be  handled  on  these  steep 
hillsides.  Behind  the  cabin  huddles  a  rough  shelter  of 
logs  and  pine  boughs  for  the  single  work-beast.  The  only 
other  stock,  a  scant  dozen  of  razor-back  pigs,  sweeten  but 
rarely  fatten  on  beechnuts  and  the  plump  acorns  of  the 
chestnut-oak.     This  is  mountain  agriculture. 

On  the  lower  slopes  we  pass  lumbering  oxen,  slowly 
dragging  great  tulip  logs  to  the  skidway,  whence  they 
go  crasliing  down  to  the  stream  below  to  wait  a  "  big  tide," 
which  will  float  them  to  the  lumber  mills  on  the  lower 
river.     This  is  mountain  industry. 

Suddenly  the  trail  turned  and  showed  a  glimpse  of  a 
cluster  of  cabins  below.  "  There,"  exclaimed  the  Princi- 
pal, "  is  n't  that  a  fine  spot  for  a  town?  "  I  agreed  that 
it  was  beautiful  but  ventured  a  suggestion  that  the  space 
was  too  narrow  to  afford  much  room  for  growth.  "  Well," 
said  he,  "  this  is  the  largest  level  spot  in  the  county." 
Such  is  the  "  pent-up  Utica,"  the  mountain  town. 

But  it  is  not  fair  merely  to  cross  over  the  mountain ; 
one  must  also  ride  up  the  valley.  This  is  the  thorough- 
A  Ride  up  fare  of  the  county,  a  way  infrequently  trav- 

the  Valley  ersed  by  wheels.     The  horses  splash  through 

Poor  Fork  innumerable  times,  while  pedestrians  cross  on 
logs  or  leap  from  stone  to  stone.  Manifestly  this  bridge- 
less  road  might  be  cut  into  fifty  sections  by  an  hour's 
thunder-storm.     After  an  ordinary  summer  freshet  I  have 

1314  1 


THE    OLD    MEN    OF    THE    MOUNTAINS 

squatted  on  the  river  bank  for  half  a  day  and  watched 
the  gathering  knots  of  mountaineers  waiting  for  the  water 
to  fall.  A  similar  group  gathered  on  the  other  side.  They 
showed  no  evidence  of  haste,  little  speculation,  and  no  in- 
clination to  take  risks.  We  simply  waited  until  the  mail- 
carrier,  whose  pay  was  at  stake,  ventured  to  try  the  ford ; 
then  the  rest  followed  after.  Such  contingencies  are  not 
conducive  to  school  going,  and  "  Reckon  ye  kin  ford  the 
branch  to-day.? "  discourages  much  social  intercourse. 
Many  of  the  valley  homes,  however,  are  in  striking  con- 
trast to  those  of  the  slopes  and  shoulders  of  the  moun- 
tain. Here  is  compressed  all  that  that  mountain  calls 
wealth.  Where  the  bottom-land  widens,  agriculture  may 
yield  a  fair  subsistence  or  even  a  rude  plenty.  Two-story, 
soHdly  framed  houses  are  not  Infrequent.  In  some  of 
them  I  have  seen  and  envied  bits  of  colonial  furniture 
or  plate,  reminiscent  of  tidewater  Virginia.  The  spinning- 
wheel  still  hums  and  the  loom  clatters,  keeping  alive  the 
fireside  industries  and  preserving  a  tradition  of  beauty 
in  weave  and  color.  Farm  touches  farm  for  miles  along 
the  valley,  and  some  traveler  or  other  on  his  jogging 
mule  is  rarely  out  of  sight.  At  intervals  one  passes  a 
rude  cabin  country  store  —  for  the  valley  is  Broadway  as 
well  as  Fifth  Avenue  —  or  a  grist-mill  with  great,  pic- 
turesque water-wheel.  The  schoolhouse  is  not  absent.  In- 
deed, as  we  have  noted,  the  county  has  fifty-three,  most 
of  which  stand  in  the  valley.  The  Principal  reports 
that  on  his  recent  round  of  eighty  miles  to  solicit  stu- 
dents he  passed  seven.  Four  were  built  of  logs  and  three 
of  slabs ;  four  had  windows,  two  had  shutters,  and  one 
had  no  light  save  from  the  open  door.  There  were 
two  stoves  for  the  seven  schools  and  two  blackboards ; 
while  in  two  the  only  seats  were  rough  planks  laid  across 

[3151 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

stones.  We  passed,  however,  one  framed  and  neatly  painted 
building  revealing  the  uplifting  influence  of  the  academy, 
and  of  the  general  educational  revival. 

Down  the  valley,  at  the  confluence  of  Poor  Fork  and 
two  other  streams,  is  the  county  seat,  the  mountaineer's 
metropolis.  Its  type  is  well  depicted  in  Fox's 
Seat;  Con-  "  Trail  of  the  Lonesome  Pine."  Its  central 
tacts  with  the  features  are  a  squat  court-house  of  brick  and 
Larger  World  ^^  jail  in  which  rough-hewn  stones  set  a  few 
inches  apart  in  its  frowning  walls,  like  the  embrasures  of 
a  fortress,  serve  in  lieu  of  windows  and  bars.  Perhaps 
two  dozen  frame  buildings,  with  a  single  corner  brick  store, 
house  the  merchandise  of  the  community.  Blacksmith  and 
harness  shops  are  in  evidence,  for  the  hitching  racks  are 
hned  with  horses,  and  the  streets  (there  are  almost  no 
sidewalks)  are  filled  with  booted  men.  There  is  a  hotel, 
chiefly  frequented  by  lawyers  at  court  time  or  by  an  oc- 
casional drummer ;  a  small  sawmill ;  frame  houses  for  the 
merchants  and  county  ofiicials,  while  the  cabins  of  the 
poorer  population  crowd  back  into  the  gullies  or  hide  on 
the  mountainside.  There  is  probably  a  doctor  or  two 
and  several  lawyers,  but  no  regular  dentist  and  no  editor. 
President  Frost  of  Berea  used  to  tell  of  twenty  contigu- 
ous mountain  counties  without  a  printing-press.  Four  or 
five  church-houses  may  be  found,  in  varying  stages  of 
dilapidation ;  but  not  one  will  have  a  pastor  who  gives 
his  entire  time  to  his  congregation.  The  preacher  is  usu- 
ally a  farmer  who  preaches  irregularly  and  makes  his  liv- 
ing by  some  other  calling  than  the  gospel.  Ser\dces  are 
held  in  each  church  "  once't  a  month."  The  preaching  is 
apt  to  be  vociferous,  intensely  sectarian,  but  sometimes 
shrewdly  pointed.     As  repository  of  doctrinal  weapons  the 

Bible  is  much  on  the  lips  of  the  people,  and  the  backwoods 

-— 


THE    OLD    MEN    OF    THE    MOUNTAINS 

county  seat  probably  hears  more  religious  "  argifying,"  iu 
a  day  than  the  whole  of  New  York.  A  revival,  like  a 
hanging  or  an  election,  will  fill  the  settlement  with  a 
motley,  high-strung  crowd,  generally  armed  with  carnal 
as  well  as  spiritual  weapons;  or  perhaps  instead  of  the 
revivalist  there  is  a  politician  organizing  the  more  ad- 
venturous into  a  mountain  army  with  which  to  descend  to 
intimidate  a  legislature  or  slay  a  governor. 

Twenty  miles  away,  beyond  the  Gap,  is  the  railroad. 
That  and  the  river  yonder  are  the  infrequent  avenues  to 
the  dimly-imagined  larger  world,  the  Blue  Grass,  the  city, 
the  college,  and  even  the  nation's  capitol.  But  poverty 
and  a  strange  inertia,  half  fear  and  half  conceit  —  far 
more  than  mere  physical  remoteness  —  keep  the  mountain 
masses  less  responsive  to  the  world's  call  than  are  the 
Slavic  peasantry  of  eastern  Europe. 

III.    MOUNTAIN   LIFE   REFLECTED   IN  THE   MOUN- 
TAINEER'S TRAITS 

In  economic  development  the  life  of  the  mountains  rep- 
resents an  incomplete  transition  from  the  hunting  and  fish- 
The  Stamp  of  ing  to  the  agricultural  stage.  Partly  from 
the  Primitive  an  unconquerable  love  of  the  wild  and  partly 
from  the  pressure  of  necessity,  forest  and  stream  are  regu- 
larly searched  for  their  store  of  food  —  wild  turkey  and 
occasional  deer,  fish,  and  honey,  with  a  relish  of  nuts  and 
berries.  Often  the  call  of  the  chase  is  louder  than  the 
more  prosaic  call  of  the  corn-field,  and  lures  the  moun- 
taineer to  the  neglect  of  his  little  farm.  Even  in  the  face 
of  extreme  need  he  remains  a  spasmodic  and  irregular 
worker,  and  when  caught  by  the  coal  or  lumber  company 
his  first  industrial  efforts  are  highly  unsatisfactory.     The 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

professional  trapper  is  a  familiar  character,  and  his  pelts 
form  a  habitual  currency  of  mountain  exchange.  Isola- 
tion from  the  world  means  two  things  —  first,  a  lack  of 
industrial  instruments  and  of  resources  for  the  easing  of 
human  misery,  but  also  poverty  of  aspiration.  Thus  it 
happens  that  many  children  of  the  mountains  look  back- 
ward ;  not  toward  American  civilization,  but  toward  the 
life  of  the  savage.  Shut  out  from  the  characteristic  cur- 
rents of  their  age  and  standing  on  an  inadequate  basis  of 
economic  resources,  they  tend  to  be  forced  back  upon  the 
primitive,  which  in  turn  stamps  itself  upon  their  minds. 

I  recall  one  of  my  earliest  visits  to  a  mountain  home  in 
company  with  a  man  who  had  come  to  inspect  it  with 
Farming  with  reference  to  a  real  estate  loan.  Examination 
Hoe,  Axe  discovered   eighty   acres   of  limestone  debris 

and  Gun  ^^^^   a^   backwoodsman's   cabin.      The   family 

consisted  of  middle-aged  parent's  and  four  half-grown 
children.  Absolutely  their  only  implements  of  labor  and 
livelihood  were  hoes,  axes,  and  guns.  Livestock  was  limited 
to  a  few  fowl.  There  was  no  draft  animal  and  on  this 
farm  not  even  pigs.  Naturally  the  loan  had  to  be  re- 
fused; yet  this  man  called  himself  a  farmer,  and  with 
such  slender  resources  was  vainly  trying  to  support  him- 
self from  the  soil. 

The  distinctive  social  and  institutional  traits  of  the 
mountains  show  clear  marks  of  their  environmental  origin. 
Environmental  ^^^  ^^^"  loyalty  of  the  feudist,  for  example. 
Origin  of  comes  by  historical  descent  from  the  Highland 

Social  Traits  Scotch.  It  has  survived  also  in  the  South- 
ern Appalachian  because  it  is  the  natural  cooperative  re- 
source of  poor  and  weak  men  who  have  been  forced  by  a 
limited  habitat  to  excessive  intermarriage.  They  strive 
with  instinctive  ferocity  to  maintain  the  blood-bond.     The 


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THE    OLD    MEN    OF    THE    MOUNTAINS 

author's  mountaineer  ancestors  preserved  their  clan  or- 
ganization through  successive  migrations  covering  at  least 
four  states,  the  habit  surviving  long  after  the  necessity 
had  passed. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  an  almost  total  absence  of 
those  more  complex  human  relations,  to  express  and  con- 
Lack  of  Social  trol  which  social  institutions  are  developed. 
Institutions  The  breakfast-table  of  the  "  middle  Ameri- 
can "  may  hold  food  products  from  a  dozen  states  and 
from  lands  beyond  both  oceans.  These  stand  for  ten 
thousand  human  ties,  each  of  which  has  some  systemized 
and  interrelated  social  process  to  guide  it.  The  moun- 
taineer's table  holds  the  scant  product  of  his  own  acres, 
raised  and  prepared  by  the  labor  of  his  own  hands.  Hence 
there  is  little  sense  of  the  need  of  institutions  beyond  the 
blood-bond.  The  primitive  barter  of  the  country  store, 
the  irregular  religious  services  of  the  settlement,  the  short 
term  school,  and  periodic  visits  to  the  county  seat  are  too 
far  apart  and  too  often  interrupted  to  serve  as  centers  for 
definite  and  dominating  organization.  Local  institutions, 
therefore,  do  not  rise  to  break  the  clan  allegiance. 

In  contrast  with  his  feeble  sense  of  the  community,  it 
is  interesting  to  discover  in  the  mountaineer  a  unique  sense 
The  Unique  °^  ^^^  nation.  That  he  is  part  of  a  larger 
Sense  of  the  life  he  has  two  impressive  reminders  —  the 
Nation  revenue    officer    and    the    soldier.      The    one 

forces  from  the  mountains  tribute  to  a  social  order  of 
which  they  are  not  conscious.  Their  manner  of  life  does 
not  depend  upon  a  vast  machinery  of  civilization  which 
must  be  supported  by  taxes ;  consequently  they  are  not 
convinced  of  the  nation's  right  to  impose  such  burdens 
upon  them.  But  the  soldier  reminds  them  of  a  relation 
of  which  they  are  most  conscious.     The  mountains  know 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

and  are  proud  of  their  record  in  war.  In  the  chapel  of 
Berea  College  I  saw  a  student  body  of  over  a  thousand 
arise,  almost  as  one  man,  to  testify  that  they  were  children 
or  grandchildren  of  Union  soldiers  of  the  Civil  War.  On 
winter  evenings  in  the  lonely  cabins,  the  battles  of  the 
nation  are  mingled  with  the  battles  of  Israel  in  fireside 
story,  and  tradition  keeps  the  memory  alive  of  how  the 
mountain  men  bulwarked  the  nation  against  the  Chero- 
kees  or  followed  Jackson  to  New  Orleans.  The  call  of 
war  has  always  touched  their  natures  and  stirred  their 
profound  instinctive  loyalty  to  an  abandon  of  patriotic 
response  to  their  country's  need.  In  '61  they  followed 
the  nation  against  their  own  states.  These  war  memories, 
moreover,  are  the  clue  to  mountain  politics.  Not  from 
any  sense  of  present  national  issues,  but  because  of  that 
party's  association  in  their  minds  with  the  cause  of  the 
Union  are  they  so  stubbornly  Republican.  The  nation 
exists  for  them  as  a  far-off,  mighty  tradition,  an  unknown 
but  extremely  genuine  object  of  allegiance;  but  between 
the  clan  and  the  nation  there  is  no  intermediate  insti- 
tution which  holds  their  hearts.  Community  life,  the 
manifold  relations  of  local  citizenship,  the  complexity  of 
civilized  institutional  activity — of  these  they  are  innocent. 
In  the  characteristic  traits  of  mountain  family  life,  es- 
pecially in  those  concerning  the  relations  of  man  and 
Relations  of  woman,  there  is  much  that  suggests  the  In- 
Sexes  dian.     The  man  lives  an  essentially  outdoor 

life,  using  the  house  rather  as  a  place  to  eat  and  sleep 
than  as  a  home.  To  the  women  is  consigned  not  only  the 
household  drudgery,  but  often  the  cultivation  of  the  soil, 
while  the  man  leads  the  woodsman's  life.  This  is  univer- 
sally the  primitive  division  of  labor.  Like  all  similarly 
situated  peoples,  the  mountaineer  makes  little  outward  show 

[320] 


THE    OLD    MEN    OF    THE    MOUNTAINS 

of  affection.  Not  often  does  he  frolic  with  liis  children, 
and  even  the  mother  holds  her  babe  stolidly.  At  public 
gatherings,  like  church  services,  the  sexes  generally  sit 
apart ;  while  the  assumption  of  masculine  superiority  is 
clearly  written  in  the  simple  yet  unyielding  fabric  of 
mountain  convention.  The  callow  youth  and  even  the 
schoolboy  assume  this  pose  as  their  natural  birthright. 
The  girl  on  the  contrary  accepts,  as  does  the  woman  of 
the  Old  World,  the  social  estimate  put  upon  her  and 
would  be  horrified  beyond  measure  at  the  independence 
which  the  modern  young  woman  claims  as  her  due.  Even 
when  one  comes  to  know  the  mountain  girl  well  as  a  student 
he  is  made  to  feel  in  a  hundred  ways  an  unfathomable 
reticence  which  is  both  a  defense  and  a  barrier.  Frequently 
even  considerable  education  fails  to  eradicate  the  old  in- 
stinct, and  the  cultured  and  well-equipped  girl  returns  to 
the  cabin  life  as  the  fulfilment  of  her  nature.  All  this 
necessarily  affects  marriage  relations.  The  most  subtle 
and  exquisite  interpreter  of  the  mountains,  herself  born 
of  them,  puts  it  thus: 

A  rift  is  set  between  the  sexes  at  babyhood  that 
widens  with  the  passing  of  the  years,  a  rift  that  is 
never  closed  even  by  the  daily  interdependence  of 
a  poor  man's  partnership  with  his  wife.  Rare  is  a 
separation  of  a  married  couple  in  the  mountains ;  the 
bond  of  perfect  sympathy  is  rarer.  The  difference 
is  one  of  mental  training  and  standpoint  rather  than 
the  more  serious  one  of  unlike  character,  or  marriage 
would  be  impossible.  But  difference  there  certainly 
is.  Man  and  woman,  although  they  be  twenty  years 
married  —  although  in  twenty  years  there  has  been 
not  one  hour  in  which  one  has  not  been  immediately 
necessary   to   the  welfare   of   the   other  —  still   must 

21  [  321  ] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

needs  regard  each  other  wonderingly,  with  a  preju- 
dice that  takes  the  form  of  a  mild,  half-amused  con- 
tempt for  one  another's  opinions  and  desires.  The 
pathos  of  the  situation  is  none  the  less  terrible  be- 
cause unconscious.  They  are  so  silent.  They  know 
so  pathetically  little  of  each  other's  lives.-*^ 

I  have  seen  just  this  trait  characteristically  illustrated 
in  families  which  I  have  known  intimately  for  a  number 
of  years. 

An  apparently  contradictory  but  equally  characteris- 
tic primitive  trait  —  and  one  of  the  most  interesting  — 
Social  Au-  ^^  ^^^®  unusual  respect  sometimes  given  to  old 

thority  of  Old  women.  One  whose  body  and  brain  have  run 
Women  ^}^g  harsh  gauntlet  of  privation  and  labor  may 

develop  a  lean  and  wiry  endurance  and  a  practical  re- 
sourcefulness, which  with  age  ripen  into  a  unique  social 
authority.  The  Savage  woman  used  frequently  to  achieve 
a  similar  position  by  reason  of  her  dominant  share  in 
primitive  culture.  In  a  social  group  as  dependent  upon 
itself  as  are  the  mountaineers,  the  home  industries  in  the 
hands  of  women  produce  most  of  the  comforts  of  life  and 
much  of  its  wealth.  I  noted  that  Jackson's  "  old  woman  " 
was  the  real  head  of  the  house.  I  understood  why,  when 
I  saw  her  heaps  of  homespun  blankets  (enough,  she  ex- 
plained, for  all  her  daughters'  children;  and  they  expect 
large  famihes).  She  would  not  sell  one  at.  any  price, 
though  for  a  sufficiently  large  sum  my  companions  secured 
enough  jeans  for  a  suit.  In  such  characters  we  discover 
under  mountain  rudeness  the  same  capable  woman  of 
whom  the  Hebrew  Proverbs  sing,  examples  of  capacity  left 
in  the  rough,  as  in  a  statue  of  Rodin's. 

'  Miles,  "Spirit  of  the  Mountains,"  pp.  69,  70. 

[322] 


THE    OLD    MEN    OF    THE    MOUNTAINS 


"She  riseth  also  while  it  is  yet  night. 
And  giveth  meat  to  her  household. 
And  their  task  to  her  maidens." 

"She  girdeth  her  loins  with  strength, 
And  maketh  strong  her  arms. 
She  perceiveth  that  her  merchandise  is  profitable: 

Her  lamp  giveth  not  out  by  night. 
She  layeth  her  hand  to  the  distaff, 
And  her  hands  hold  the  spindle." 

"  Her  husband  is  known  in  the  gates 

When  he  sitteth  among  the  elders  of  the  land. 
Strength  and  dignity  are  her  clothing; 

And  she  laugheth  at  the  time  to  come. 
She  openeth  her  mouth  With  wisdom. 

And  the  law  of  kindness  is  on  her  tongue. 
She  looketh  well  to  the  ways  of  the  household, 

And  eateth  not  the  bread  of  idleness." 

Savage  or  civilized,  highland  or  lowland,  she  is  rare;  but 
where  she  exists  "  her  price  is  above  rubies." 

The  religion  of  the  mountaineer,  too,  feels  the  modify- 
ing touch  of  the  wild.  As  a  personal  solace  and  an  emo- 
The  Touch  tional  energy  and  resource  in  the  hour  of 
of  the  Wild  crisis,  it  is  a  genuine  and  momentous  thing, 
upon  Rehgion  g^t,  on  the  other  hand,  the  mountain  barrier 
has  prevented  the  institutional  development  of  the  church. 
It  has  defeated  the  missionary  in  common  with  the  other 
agents  of  civilization.  Throughout  the  mountains  there 
is  a  large  lack  of  the  most  characteristic  outward  expres- 
sions of  church  hfe  —  buildings,  regular  services,  a  pro- 
fessional ministry,  a  systematic  parish  organization,  mani- 
fold activities  of  present-day  Christianity.  Besides  this, 
the  mountains  have  produced  a  temperamental  change  in 
religion.  The  original  Scotch-Irish  stock  went  into  the 
mountains  Presbyterian.  Their  descendants  are  now  most 
largely  Baptist  and  Methodist.  The  breaking  off  of  the 
Cumberland  branch  from  the  Presbyterian  body  marked 

[323] 


CHRISTIAN    EECONSTEUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

a  tendency  toward  the  present  characteristic  type  of  re- 
ligious Hfe;  more  emotional,  less  staid  and  orderly  than 
it  originally  was.  It  is  with  great  difficulty  that  pupils 
in  certain  mission  schools  are  induced  to  attend  Episcopal 
services,  and  the  admirable  work  of  this  church  has  had 
a  difficult  handicap  in  the  distaste  of  the  mountaineer 
for  ecclesiastical  form.  The  ill-balanced  temper  of  the 
poorer  population,  reflecting  their  under-nourishment, 
craves  religion,  as  it  does  whisky,  as  a  stimulant.  The 
"  right  hand  of  fellowship  "  concluding  a  mountain  preach- 
ing may  be  as  frankly  primitive  as  the  negro's  most  bois- 
terous church  service.  Both  are  reversions  to  the  religious 
spontaneity  of  the  earlier  ages. 

Naturally,  religion  cannot  become  the  reenforcement  or 
guaranty  of  a  social  system  which  the  mountaineer  does 
not  have  or  believe  in.  It  does  not  tend,  for  example, 
greatly  to  back  up  the  revenue  laws.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  does  mightily  reenforce  clan  loyalty.  It  is  tribal  rather 
than  Christian  (as  indeed  is  much  of  the  religion  of  more 
privileged  people)  and  does  not  demand  the  exercise  of 
Christian  virtue  toward  those  beyond  the  pale.  It  is  in- 
termingled with  a  larger  number  of  particular  supersti- 
tions than  is  that  of  the  average  American ;  for  the  moun- 
taineer's thinking  has  not  been  persistently  schooled  away 
from  the  early  race-imagination,  which  peopled  the  world 
with  mysterious  powers.  And  because  the  mountain  en- 
vironment is  niggardly,  the  religious  impressions  drawn 
from  it  are  fearsome  rather  than  tender.  Thus  the  mys- 
terious "  T'other  mountain  "  does  not  yield  the  adventurer 
"  glimpses  which  should  make  him  less  forlorn,"  but  rather 
an  ever-present  sense  of  impending  danger.  Finally,  the 
brooding  temper  of  the  mountain,  wrought  upon  by  the 
potent  spells  of  forest  and  stream,  fiercely  fed  by  omen 

[3241 


THE    OLD    MEN    OF    THE    MOUNTAINS 

and  arbitrary  Scripture,  shows  itself  in  all  manner  of 
quaint  and  sometimes  dark  vagaries  of  theology  and  re- 
ligious imagination.  The  mountains  are  prolific  of  seced- 
ing sects.  Marauding  faiths,  like  Mormonism,  find  apt 
pupils  there,  and  contradictions  of  personal  character 
occur  like  that  of  old  Red  Fox  in  "  The  Trail  of  the  Lone- 
some Pine,"  mystic  and  assassin,  preacher  and  traitor! 

Enormous  ilhteracy  and  an  almost  total  absence  of  books 
and  of  the  habit  of  reading,  such  a  phenomenon  as  that  of 

r,  J.       .  twenty  contiguous  counties  without  a  print- 

Kudimentary        .  -^  °  ^ 

Literary  and  ing-press,  naturally  do  not  tend  to  those 
Esthetic  outward  expressions  of  literary  and  esthetic 

n  eres  s  interest  to  which  completer  civilizations  are 

accustomed.  Nevertheless  the  mountains  have  a  tradi- 
tional literature,  an  elaborate  and  highly  artistic  folk-lore, 
a  simple  yet  genuine  musical  tradition  —  coming  straight 
from  the  ballad  makers  of  the  Scotch  border,  as  well  as 
a  conventional  art,  by  no  means  despicable,  in  their  old 
weaves  and  dye-colors,  their  basketry  and  furniture  pat- 
terns. They  use  many  archaic  words  and  phrases,  pre- 
serving a  pure  and  ancient  English  speech  from  which 
we  have  departed.  There  is  a  curiously  complex  mingling 
in  their  folk-stories  of  myths  from  over  seas  with  those 
of  the  Cherokee  Indians.  Another  genuinely  artistic  crea- 
tion is  a  rude  minstrelsy  —  less  primitive,  original,  and 
emotionally  penetrating  than  the  negro's,  but  equally 
characteristic  of  its  people.  No  American  group  is  more 
dependent  on,  responsive  to,  or  critical  toward,  the  spoken 
word,  as  many  a  Northern  missionary  has  found  to  his 
sorrow.  Oratory  is  still  the  chief  art,  and  eloquence  is 
vital  rather  than  traditional.  Thus  the  mountain  fiddler, 
the  looms,  and  dye  kettle  of  the  valley,  the  fireside  story- 
teller, and  itinerant  preacher  attest  the  life  of  the  imagi- 

[325] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

nation ;  while  the  mountains  themselves  perpetuate  the 
sense  of  awe  and  stir  the  quick  love  of  beauty. 

His  fundamental  lack  of  a  sufficient  basis  of  economic 
support  needs  to  be  insisted  upon  as  the  real  explanation 
Less  Amiable  ^^  ^^^  mountaineer's  less  amiable  traits,  both 
Qualities:  mental  and  moral.     His  deficiencies,  Uke  the 

Violence  negro's,  are  the  legitimate  results  of  his  so- 

cial station.  His  violence,  for  example,  is  primarily  the 
fruit  of  under-feeding  and  poor  housing.  Ill-nourished 
nerves  crave  "  moonshine,"  and  in  lives  touched  by  the 
wildness  of  nature,  deficiency  in  motor  control  expresses 
itself  in  sudden  murder.  The  sensational  exploiting  of 
mountain  communities  by  novel  and  newspaper,  grievously 
misrepresents  their  average  social  condition.  Yet  they 
undoubtedly  surpass  the  rest  of  the  nation  and  even  of 
their  section  in  the  reckless  taking  of  human  life.  I  am 
sure  that  the  holiday  season,  in  the  immediate  region  of 
the  mountain  town  where  I  recently  spent  six  months,  was 
a  time  of  more  killings  than  would  occur  in  a  rural  county 
of  the  Middle  West  in  ten  years.  It  is  probable  that  the 
habit  of  homicide  was  fixed  in  the  mountains  by  the  bush- 
whacking exploits  of  the  Civil  War  —  such  as  the  fratri- 
cidal strife  of  "  Rebel  Jake  "  and  "  Union  Jerry  "  in  Fox's 
story.  One  who  has  spent  his  life  among  them  tells  me, 
"  Before  the  war  they  used  to  fight  with  their  fists."  Thus 
from  the  great  struggle  in  which  the  mountains  bore  so 
splendid  a  part,  has  come  the  custom  of  avenging  wrongs 
with  the  bullet. 

Such  an  explanation  seems  not  to  fit  such  a  mountaineer 
as  the  late  Judge  Hargis  of  Breathitt  County,  Kentucky, 
the  reputed  king  of  feudists  and  assassins.  He  was 
neither  poor  nor  ignorant,  and  had  had  no  little  contact 
with  pubhc  affairs  in  the  larger  world  of  men.     The  mys- 

[326] 


THE    OLD    MEN    OF    THE    MOUNTAINS 


tery  is  dissolved  by  the  reflection  that  habit  tends  to  live 
on  after  the  original  conditions  which  created  it  have 
disappeared.  In  each  generation  there  are  still  enough 
mountaineers  whose  poverty  keeps  them  wild  to  renew  con- 
tinually the  springs  of  violence.  The  contact  of  the  moun- 
tain masses  with  the  higher  stimulus  of  the  larger  world 
is  still  extremely  limited.  Lacking  as  they  do  the  antidotes 
of  a  completer  civilization,  they  are  persistently  inocu- 
lated by  the  more  violent  minority,  and  the  homicidal  habit 
is  propagated  by  social  tradition. 

The  mountaineer's  most  irritating  fault  is  the  fatalistic 
acceptance  of  unnecessary  evils,  especially  apathy  in  the 
.     ,,     •  presence  of  misery.     It  also  goes  back  to  the 

the  Presence  economic  deficit.  These  are  the  marks  of  men 
of  Misery  ^Jth  whom  life  has  so  long  been  niggardly 

that  they  have  ceased  to  hope.  The  hardness  of  the  moun- 
tains soon  wears  out  the  most  buoyant.  One  of  my  earher 
pleasure  trips  into  a  typical  region  led  me  to  Zach 
McDowell's.  Zach's  home  was  more  spacious  than  most 
in  the  settlement  and  in  it  he  entertained  strangers  for  a 
price.  My  roommate  for  that  night  was  a  burly  United 
States  deputy  marshal  in  search  of  timber  thieves.  Dur- 
ing the  evening  a  merry  group  of  neighborhood  young 
people  had  been  singing  around  the  "  parlor  "  organ,  and 
we  had  both  commented  upon  the  fresh  and  wholesome  face 
and  full  voice  of  Zach's  youngest  daughter.  Two  years 
later  I  came  that  way  again,  and  was  horrified  to  find 
her  a  sunken-faced  and  back-bowed  mother.  Her  husband 
was  a  mountaineer  above  the  average.  They  had  had 
only  the  common  adversities  of  their  people,  but  she  had 
broken  under  them.  This  was  my  first  introduction  to 
a  group  phenomenon,  the  early  fading  of  the  mountain 
woman.     For  their  chief  tragedies  are  not  the  slaughter 

[327] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

of  men  but  the  sufferings  of  mothers  and  children.  The 
struggle  with  the  wild  means  not  only  racking  labor, 
but  frequent  accidents,  far  from  civiHzed  help.  It  in- 
volves such  risks,  for  example,  as  the  jamming  of  the  log 
raft  so  thrillingly  described  in  Fox's  "  Little  Shepherd  of 
Kingdom  Come."  I  think  I  never  saw  a  school  with  so 
many  maimed  children  as  Black  Mountain  Academy. 
Childbirth  without  a  physician;  an  unequal  struggle  for 
the  poor  necessities  of  life;  a  lack  of  the  essential  ele- 
ments of  civilized  dietary ;  miserable  cooking  and  result- 
ing dyspepsia ;  the  absence  of  dentist  and  oculist ;  the 
lack  of  social  stimulus  to  make  pride  preserve  what  it  can 
of  the  victim's  wreck  —  all  these  conspire  to  depress  the 
mountain  woman's  soul  and  to  rob  growing  childhood  of  its 
strength.  The  result  is  paralysis  of  the  will  to  strive,  as 
exeraphfied  in  one  of  Mrs.  Miles'  mountain  types : 

I  have  never  seen  anything  greatly  resembling  Mary 
Burns.  A  certain  maid,  once  of  the  village  of  Naza- 
reth, may  have  had  the  same  pure,  modest  sweetness, 
but  her  loveliness  was  of  a  type  belonging  to  an- 
other race.  For  this  Mary's  hair  was  rich  chestnut, 
and  her  eyes  were  blue  —  such  a  blue,  softened  by 
lashes  of  a  length  one  notices  on  the  lids  of  children. 
There  was  little  light  of  intelligence  in  those  eyes, 
but  one  felt  that  Mary's  capacity  for  doglike  devo- 
tion was  unlimited.  Excepting  its  innocence,  the  rich 
coloring  of  her  face  was  its  most  striking  feature. 
She  had  such  a  complexion  as  the  first  masters,  know- 
ing the  effect  of  Southern  sun,  painted  without  stint 
of  olive  and  golden  velvet  and  perfect  rose.  Gentle- 
ness and  simplicity  are  characteristic  of  the  faces  of 
mountain  girls. 

There  are  those  of  a  genuine  exquisite  modesty 
who  have  never  in  their  lives  slept  in  a  room  apart 

[  328  ] 


THE    OLD    MEN    OF    THE    MOUNTAINS 

from  the  men  of  their  household.  But  this  was  a 
child's  face,  with  a  child's  ignorance  behind  its  lovely 
mask,  a  child's  readiness  to  flash  into  smiles  at  the 
least  provocation,  a  face  that  ought  surely  to  have 
met   only  with  tenderness  everywhere. 

And  with  all  her  beauty  she  had  not  even  the 
mountain  woman's  poor  best  of  cheap  calico  to  wear! 
I  tried  to  imagine  her  dressed  in  a  white  dimity,  such 
as  young  girls  wear  in  more  favored  regions,  but 
even  this  seemed  incongruous,  although  she  could  not 
have  been  more  than  seventeen  years  old.  As  we 
coiled  and  fastened  her  hair,  I  asked  if  she  were  going 
to  the  feet-washing,  knowing  how  dear  to  the  moun- 
taineer heart  is  the  privilege  of  attending  every  form 
of  religious   service. 

*'  I  reckon  not,"  she  answered,  in  her  sweet,  hushed, 
nun-like  tones.  "  I  ain't  been  to  church  sence  my 
shoes  wore  out,  sometime  last  March."  So  she  had 
trodden  the  freezing  mud  of  early  April  with  bare 
feet !  It  would  never  have  occurred  to  her  to  hide 
her  poverty  or  her  present  physical  distress ;  she 
hardly  realized  that  in  this  respect  she  was  ill  used 
by  her  husband. 

Superstition  ascribes  misery  to  mysterious  sources  and 
forbids  rational  remedies.  To  the  cabin  where  a  mis- 
The  Tragedy  sionary  was  entertained  came  a  mountain 
of  Sickness  father  at  night-time  carrying  a  child  delirl- 

and  Age  Q^g  ^ith  fever.     He  wanted  to  borrow  an  old 

shoe  to  get  water  out  of  a  healing  spring!  The  deep 
capacity  of  the  Scotch  stock  for  varied,  tender  brooding 
degenerates  into  mental  vacuity.  When  the  body  rests 
there  is  little  energy  left  for  intellectual  effort.  When 
the  body  fails  an  almost  unconquerable  apathy  sits  and 
watches  its  decline. 

[329] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

A  new  missionary  teacher  thus  describes  her  first  ex- 
perience with  sickness  in  the  mountains: 

We  had  heard  that  SalHe's  mother  was  sick  and 
consequently  that  SalHe  could  n't  come  back  to  school 
this  year.  So  yesterday  Miss  B.,  the  matron,  with 
a  group  of  schoolgirls,  started  to  carry  them  some 
necessities,  with  a  little  jelly  and  fruit;  and  I  went 
along.  It  was  about  three  miles,  and  the  path  fol- 
lowed the  Pacolet,  at  this  point  a  mountain  stream 
breaking  into  innumerable  rapids  and  cascades.  We 
found  the  cabin  in  a  deep  gully,  surrounded  by  a  clear- 
ing of  about  half  an  acre,  thickly  covered  by  gravel 
brought  down  by  a  recent  freshet.  A  few  stalks  of 
sickly  yellow  com  still  stood,  and  an  old  white  pig,  who 
came  to  meet  us,  was  the  onl}'^  living  possession  of  the 
family.  Sallie's  brother  of  twenty  is  a  "  farmer."  In 
the  winter  he  gathers  chestnut  bark  for  the  Old  Fort 
tannery.    They  have  no  other  means  of  support. 

The  cabin  seemed  to  have  suffered  from  freshets, 
too,  for  the  foundation  had  been  washed  away  at  one 
end  and  it  lopped  down  into  the  damp  earth.  In- 
side, where  the  floor  had  come  in  contact  with  the 
ground,  it  had  rotted  away,  leaving  jagged  holes 
either  side  the  fireplace,  which  furnished  the  only 
heat  for  the  two  rooms.  In  one  comer  lay  the  sick 
mother  on  a  disorderly  bed,  with  horrible  dirty  cov- 
erings and  no  linen  at  all.  She  was  all  bloated  with 
dropsy,  but  shrilled  out  many  blessings  on  our  heads 
for  the  presents.  Sallie  and  two  other  older  sisters 
were  pictures  of  helpless  inefficiency.  It  made  me  wild 
to  see  them  sit  and  sit  and  do  nothing.  Miss  B.  im- 
pressed upon  them  repeatedly  that  they  must  put  the 
fresh  linen  on  their  mother's  bed  and  not  eat  the 
oranges  themselves,  but  I  am  not  sure  what  happened 
when  we  got  away. 

[330] 


THE    OLD    MEN    OF    THE    MOUNTAINS 

When  the  body  dies,  isolation  compels  its  consignment 
to  the  ground  with  the  slightest  delay,  in  the  expectation 
that  in  six  months  or  a  year  a  funeral  service  will  be  held 
at  the  church-house.  This  custom  of  deferred  burial  rites 
is  frequent  even  at  the  county  seats  and  railroad  towns. 
Thus  a  habit  born  of  mountain  necessity  survives  in  popu- 
lations now  far  beyond  its  compulsion.  Similarly  the 
general  mental  cast  of  the  region  is  touched  by  the  traits 
of  the  most  backward.  The  constitutional  nervelessness 
and  apathy  of  the  minority  deeply  influences  the  energies 
of  the  whole  group. 

On  the  other  hand,  where  the  struggle  with  nature  has 
not  too  deeply  depressed  the  body  and  mind,  all  of  the 
Mountain  splendid,  homely  virtues  of  the  pioneer  sur- 

Virtues  vive,  and  often  take  on  rare  attractiveness 

in  the  sons  and  daughters  of  the  mountains.  Their  de- 
layed development  conserves  much  that  this  age  lacks  of 
unspoiled  elemental  manhood  and  simplicity  of  spirit  — 
both  profoundly  urgent  moral  needs  of  to-day.  Beneath 
a  reckless  individualism  and  ignorant  conceit  one  discerns 
resources  of  sturdy  independence.  The  mountaineer  faces 
his  hard  circumstances  with  a  heart  at  once  undaunted 
and  resigned.  A  saving  sense  of  humor  breaks  every  fall 
and  turns  defeat  into  more  than  half  a  victory.  Having 
shrewdly  fathomed  human  nature  as  it  exists  in  his  nar- 
row range,  he  finds  his  judgments  surprisingly  just  and 
accurate  when  opportunity  comes  to  apply  them  to  the 
larger  world.  He  undertakes  unwonted  responsibility  with 
a  certain  honorable  largeness  and  perspective ;  thus  show- 
ing that  wisdom  is  born  of  insight  rather  than  of  the 
mere  multiplication  of  experiences.  Lincoln  was  such  a 
man  and  had  such  wisdom.  "  He  that  is  faithful  in  that 
which  is  least  is  faithful  also  in  much."     Training  in  the 

[331] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

school  of  adversity  often  develops  in  the  mountaineer  a 
practical  capacity  for  making  small  resources  count  which 
spells  marvelous  success  when  once  the  instruments  of 
modern  life  are  put  in  his  hands.  Recently  I  watched  a 
mountain  student's  first  inspection  of  the  newly  installed 
hot-air  furnace  in  a  mission  school  dormitory.  The  moun- 
taineer, like  the  Indian,  studiously  refrains  from  confessing 
surprise  at  the  unaccustomed ;  but  this  boy's  curiosity 
and  interest  got  the  better  of  him.  Soon  he  was  freely 
speculating  on  the  operation  and  success  of  the  innova- 
tion ;  yet  not  for  a  moment  did  he  admit  to  the  world  or 
to  himself  that  he  was  not  its  potential  master.  He  seemed 
to  me  typical  of  the  mountaineer  facing  modem  civiliza- 
tion. The  mood  of  the  forward-looking  among  them  is 
the  mood  of  conquest.  Put  it  to  the  test  by  furnishing  it 
an  opportunity  and  it  will  justify  itself  as  it  has  done  ten 
thousand  times. 

The  conflicting  traits  of  their  people,  evil  and  good,  I 
have  watched  in  successive  generations  of  students,  each 

^    J      J  adding  conclusiveness  to  the   iudement  that 

Good  and  *=  .        P 

Evil  Traits  the    problem    of    the    mountain    is    twofold ; 

of  Mountain        partly  that  of  a  suppressed  population  pos- 
"  ^°  ^  sessing  but  not  utilizing  the  normal  capaci- 

ties of  Americans,  and  partly  that  of  a  remnant,  sifted 
out  in  the  westward  march  of  civilization  as  deficient  in 
energy  and  progressiveness.  Education  simply  discovers 
these  differences.  We  record  this  solemnly,  as  if  the  case 
of  the  mountaineer  was  unique.  All  peoples  have  these 
two  classes  and  all  education  simply  systemizes  the  proc- 
esses which  sift  man.-^  Thus  it  frequently  appears  that 
the  mountain  boy  has  too  much  inborn  inertia  to  respond 

*  Thorndike,  Educational  Psychology,    "The   Influence    of   Selection," 
ch.  ix. 

[  332  ] 


The  Mountain  Weaver 


The  Cotton-Mill 


THE    OLD    MEN    OF    THE    MOUNTAINS 

to  the  steady  discipline  of  study.  His  nature  is  not 
sufficiently  elastic  to  adjust  itself  to  school  conditions. 
Such  a  one  was  "  Big  Scotch,"  who  strayed  from  the  hills, 
and  was  laid  hold  of  and  made  "  center  "  on  a  college  foot- 
ball team.  The  gridiron  gave  ample  scope  for  the  primi- 
tive in  him,  and  he  quickly  became  an  academic  hero ;  but 
neither  flattery  nor  abuse  could  keep  him  at  his  books, 
and  only  strenuous  appeal  to  clan  loyalty  under  the  guise 
of  college  spirit  held  him  through  the  season.  At  night, 
for  utter  homesickness,  the  big  fellow  would  cry  like  a 
child;  and  when  football  was  over  for  the  year  the  call 
of  the  wild  became  irresistible.  Back  went  "  Big  Scotch  " 
to  the  cabin.  Another  year  the  college,  in  desperate  need 
of  him,  tried  by  all  manner  of  persuasion,  including  ample 
financial  inducements,  to  dig  him  from  his  hills;  but  in 
vain.  He  remained  a  mountaineer,  not  of  necessity,  but 
through  natural  affinity  for  the  life  of  the  past. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  count  it  among  my  chief  com- 
pensations to  have  known  somewhat  intimately  a  number 
,   ,  .      ,  of   mountain    students    in    an    institution    of 

Mountains  by  higher  learning.  I  have  watched  and  in 
their  Possi-  some  measure  shared  in  their  transformation, 
bihties  They  were  raw   material   but   most   capable 

stuff.  Gaunt  and  unawakened  boys  grew  into  alert,  self- 
reliant,  well-equipped  modem  men,  invariably  with  a  strong 
grain  of  idealism  in  their  make-up,  and  able  to  stand  the 
test  before  the  kings  of  commerce  and  industry.  There 
is  only  one  finer  thing  than  this,  namely,  that  wonderful 
expansion  of  the  mountain  girl's  nature  under  the  new 
incentives  of  culture.  Her  earnest  and  capable  womanhood 
is  sure  to  be  a  center  of  wholesome  home  life  as  she  goes 
back  to  her  mountain  community  —  generally  first  as  a 
teacher  in  her  own  country   school.     Perhaps  this  back- 

[  333  1 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

ground  of  experience  helps  me  when  I  sit  in  some  little 
cabin  on  the  Upper  Cumberland  and  see  the  parent  in- 
carnations of  mountain  simphcity.  An  old  grandmother 
faces  me.  She  sits  tilted  back  against  the  wall,  her  rough- 
shod feet  on  the  rungs  of  the  hickory  chair,  and  her  knees 
mannishly  apart.  Her  pipe  is  between  her  teeth  and 
periodically  she  spits  across  the  room  into  the  fire;  but 
her  face  reminds  me  of  the  Cumaean  Sibyl,  and  an  awe  sur- 
rounds her,  as  if  she  were  the  Prophetess  Deborah  under 
the  palm-tree  in  the  hill-country  of  Ephraim. 

With  an  unexplored  wealth  of  such  material  to  work 
upon,  the  assimilation  of  mountain  life  to  the  best  Ameri- 
The  Moun-  can  standard  waits  but  two  things  —  first, 
tain's  Needs:      the  development  of  the  natural  resources  of 

Development      -^g  region  by  the  larger  instruments  of  civili- 

01  Kesources;  .  .     ,  ,  . 

Guidance  of        zation,    capital,    machmery,   transportation ; 

Ideals  and  second,  the  extension  of  educational  in- 

stitutions to  furnish  both  technical  skill  and  ideal  guid- 
ance. These  are  both  coming  with  almost  alarming  rapid- 
ity. Of  men  to  respond  there  will  be  no  lack.  They  are 
there  waiting,  offering  a  primitive  American  character, 
unspoiled  and  largely  unused,  plastic  yet  wholesomely  re- 
sistant, to  the  touch  of  our  full-fledged  destinies  as  men 
of  this  crowning  age. 


334] 


XI.     THE    PASSING   OF    THE 
MOUNTAINEER 

PRESIDING  over  the  future  of  the  mountains  are 
two  ominous  characters,  the  millionaire  and  the 
missionary.  The  passing  of  their  characteristic 
Hfe  is  predestined  on  the  one  hand  by  two  facts  —  the 
very  heart  of  its  region  holds  the  largest  unworked  coal 
fields  in  the  United  States,  while  its  superb  scenery  and 
equable  climate,  both  summer  and  winter,  make  it  a  na- 
tional playground.  On  the  other  hand,  neither  the  state 
nor  the  Christian  conscience  can  longer  endure  the  waste 
of  mountain  manhood  for  lack  of  opportunity. 

There   is   thus   a   new   chapter  in   the   history  of   the 
Southern  Appalachians. 

I.    THE  EXPLOITATION  OF  THE  MOUNTAINS  BY 
INDUSTRY 

The  mountaineer  is  not  so  much  to-day  the  man  who 

has  been  left  alone  as  he  is  the  man  whom  we  will  not 

rri,    T.T  leave  alone.     For  the  wealth  of  mineral  and 

1  he  Man  .  i  •   i       t 

Whom  We  of  timber  which  these  mountains   hold,   but 

will  not  Leave     especially    for    the    wealth    of   labor    power, 
°^^  industry   is   fast  penetrating  their  most  in- 

accessible nooks  and  comers.  The  industrial  exploitation 
of  the  mountains  is  far  advanced,  and  with  it  the  passing 
of  the  mountaineer.     We   call  this   progress,   forgetting 

[335] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

that  to  this  belated  man  it  brings  a  strain  of  body,  mind, 
and  heart  which  the  best  of  us  can  scarcely  bear,  and  for 
which  he  is  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  unprepared. 

Consider  first  the  effect  of  the  cotton  industry  on  the 
men,  or  rather  on  the  women  and  children  of  the 
The  Cotton  mountains.  The  chief  Southern  seats  of  this 
Industry  industry  are  the  Carolinas.    If  you  will  study 

the  location  of  the  hundreds  of  mills  which  dot  the  up- 
lands of  these  states,  you  will  find  that  they  are  parallel 
to  and  frequently  in  sight  of  the  mountains.  Twenty 
years  ago  there  was  scarcely  one  of  them ;  now  this  has 
become  one  of  the  great  manufacturing  centers  of  the 
nation.  Whence  came  the  men  and  women  who  labor 
in  these  mills.?  Most  largely,  naturally,  from  the  up- 
land farms  of  the  immediate  vicinity,  but  largely,  and 
increasingly  in  recent  years,  from  the  fastnesses  of 
the  mountains.  An  intelligent  mill  owner  has  told  me 
that  the  next  census  will  show  many  mountain  counties 
practically  depopulated  to  swell  the  ranks  of  cotton-mill 
operatives. 

The  unlovely  life  of  the  Southern  cotton-mill  town  has 
been  often  exploited.  It  is  a  harsh  measure  of  the  pov- 
erty of  the  mountains,  but  in  fact  the  mill  town  may  con- 
stitute a  decided  advance  in  the  conditions  of  life.  First 
there  is  better  housing,  a  steady  cash  wage,  and  a  more 
varied  diet  of  inexpensive  food.  The  Scotchman  redis- 
covers oatmeal,  exchanges  his  com  bread  for  wheat,  and 
makes  the  acquaintance  of  rice.  There  is  a  steady  up- 
ward pressure  of  institutional  and  civic  life.  Schools  are 
few  and  poor  compared  with  those  of  more  favored  sec- 
tions, and  the  miU  child  too  often  does  not  go ;  yet  the 
opportunity  is  there,  which  public  opinion,  through  child 
labor  laws   and  educational  improvement,  is   steadily  ex- 

[336] 


THE    PASSING    OF    THE    MOUNTAINEER 

tending.  The  imagination  finds  new  food  in  the  activi- 
ties and  impulses  of  town  and  city.  Those  who  have  ears 
to  hear,  hear. 

In  this  crisis  of  transition,  however,  the  economic  and 
moral  unpreparedness  and  even  essential  incapacity  of 
part  of  the  mountain  population  is  also  revealed.  To 
them  a  cash  wage  means  excess  and  drunkenness.  They 
gorge  themselves  with  newly  discovered  food.  From  being 
fixed  by  narrow  isolation,  they  go  to  the  other  extreme 
and  become  industrial  nomads.  Such  wandering  families 
—  for  all  ages  and  both  sexes  work  —  pass  by  hundreds 
from  mill  town  to  mill  town,  their  scant  possessions 
dragged  about  in  sacks,  or  carried  in  their  arms.  The 
Southern  mills  have  generally  been  short-handed  in  recent 
years,  so  that  even  the  inefficient  have  been  sure  of  a  job. 
With  mountain  shrewdness,  the  father  sets  employer  to 
bidding  against  employer  for  the  labor  of  his  wife  and 
six,  eight,  or  ten  children  —  often  no  small  labor  force. 
To  close  a  good  bargain  he  will  often  throw  in  the  labor 
of  a  child  or  two  under  the  legal  age.  He  himself  does 
not  work  but  is  the  walking  delegate  of  his  domestic 
trade-union.  Naturally  the  down-draught  of  the  city 
soon  catches  families  of  this  type.  They  sink  finally  into 
a  peculiarly  inert  and  hopeless  class  of  criminals  and 
paupers.     Thus  the  sifting  proceeds. 

But  not  only  is  the  mill  drawing  the  mountaineer  out 
of  his  mountains ;  it  is  itself  going  up  into  the  moun- 
The  Going  of  ^^'^^^  to  find  him.  I  have  recently  traveled 
the  Mill  to  three  branch  lines  which  lead  from  the  main 

the  Mountain  jj^e  of  a  Southern  railroad  into  the  moun- 
tains, and  have  been  amazed  at  the  degree  to  which  in- 
dustry has  followed  the  mountaineer  into  his  own  home. 
Here  is  a  mill,  fifty  miles  from  a  cotton  field  and  eight 

22  [  337  ] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

miles  from  the  end  of  a  branch  railroad.  The  cotton  is 
shipped  by  rail  and  hauled  by  wagon  over  a  rough  moun- 
tain road;  is  manufactured,  and  the  product  hauled  out 
again.  What  makes  it  possible  thus  to  disregard  all  con- 
veniences of  transportation.''  First,  the  presence  of  good 
water-power,  but  chiefly  the  accessibility  of  cheap  labor. 
Here  is  a  population  unused  to  industry ;  intensely  in- 
dividualistic;  innocent  of  all  knowledge  of  labor  organ- 
ization ;  which  has  handled  very  little  cash,  and  is  con- 
sequently willing  to  sell  itself  for  an  incredibly  small  sum 
in  weekly  wages.  Adults  receive  perhaps  $4  and  children 
$2  per  week.  Their  parents  willingly  swear  that  children 
are  twelve,  when  they  are  only  nine  or  ten,  and  "  Every- 
body works  but  father "  is  not  poetry  here,  but  sober 
prose.  There  are  coming  to  be  many  such  mills  among 
the  mountains,  as  well  as  other  industries.  In  the  midst 
of  the  most  picturesque  stretch  of  mountain  scenery  in 
North  Carolina  the  train  suddenly  stops  over  against  a 
million  dollar  tannery,  which  is  robbing  the  whole  "  land 
of  the  sky  "  of  one  of  its  most  splendid  trees,  the  chest- 
nut-oak, that  the  nation  may  wear  tan  shoes. 

Thus  the  old  problems  of  the  belated  and  ignorant 
highlander  mingle  with  the  new  problems  of  child  labor 
,p,    p      ,  and  of  modern  industry  in  general.    But  now, 

a  Century  while  we  have  gradually  worked  up  to  this 

Unprepared  industrial  age  through  a  century  and  a  half, 
or  n  ustry  ^.j^j^  man,  our  belated  ancestor,  our  "  con- 
temporary grandfather,"  is  hurled  into  the  very  midst  of 
its  strange  perplexity  and  struggle  without  preparation. 
Take  the  single  aspect  of  sanitation.  I  know  a  mill  vil- 
lage in  as  beautiful  a  valley  as  the  mountains  possess. 
The  employer  has  honestly  tried  to  create  wholesome 
industrial  conditions,  yet  as  time  has  passed  the  sources 

[338] 


THE    PASSING    OF    THE    MOUNTAINEER 

of  water-supply  have  been  contaminated  by  drainage  until 
the  whole  smiling  valley  is  sodden  with  hidden  corruption, 
and  women  and  children  drop  and  die  with  typhoid  as  regu- 
larly as  months  come  and  go.  The  only  possible  remedy 
is  a  thorough  job  of  sanitary  engineering,  so  expensive 
that  the  resources  of  the  mill  corporation  could  not  pos- 
sibly justify  it.  Against  this  unwonted  peril  of  sewage 
the  mountaineer  is  helpless.  His  cabin  has  been  cold,  but 
well  ventilated  above,  below,  and  on  all  four  sides.  Now 
he  works  in  a  steam-heated  mill,  and  all  the  perils 
of  the  wilderness,  the  tomahawk  of  the  savage,  and  the 
harsh  struggle  of  the  pioneer  with  the  niggardly  moun- 
tains, brought  no  such  danger  to  life  as  is  involved  in 
bad  air. 

Farther  west,  in  Tennessee  and  Kentucky,  there  are 
few  cotton-mills,  but  industry  has  searched  out  the  nooks 
Coal  and  and  comers  of  the  mountains  for  their  coal 

Lumber  and  timber,  and  there  also  the  old  mountain 

life  is  fast  passing.  We  went  a  three  days'  horseback  ride 
from  the  railroad  over  the  Black  Mountain ;  down  into 
the  valley  of  Yoakum  Creek;  down  that  creek  to  its 
junction  with  Poor  Fork  of  the  Cumberland;  up  the  fork; 
up  Looney  Creek,  until  we  came  at  nightfall  to  the  cabin 
of  Old  Man  Jackson  on  the  border  of  Letcher  County. 
Old  Man  Jackson  is  a  sort  of  nabob  of  the  mountains, 
where  the  valley  widens  a  little  and  furnishes  the  possi- 
bility of  a  bottom  farm.  He  has  a  four-room  cabin  with 
three  great  stone  chimneys,  and  there  with  his  strong  sons 
and  daughters  he  dwells  in  self-sufficiency.  His  farm  and 
pasture  furnish  food ;  his  wool,  clothing.  The  loom  stands 
on  the  back  porch,  and  the  family,  both  men  and  women, 
are  chiefly  clad  in  homespun.  We  slept  under  many 
thicknesses  of  homespun  blankets,  in  a  room  where  rings 

[339] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

of  pumpkins  were  drying  on  spikes  stuck  between  the 
stones  of  the  great  fireplace.  The  household  is  literally 
independent  of 

"  The  butcher,  the  baker,  the  candlestick-maker," 

for  the  only  lights  are  the  dipped  candles  and  the  flare 
of  the  open  fire.  If  the  mountains  had  suddenly  risen  and 
fenced  the  valley  on  either  side,  its  life  might  have  gone 
on  indefinitely  without  ever  missing  the  world,  and  I 
thought  that  of  this  spot  at  least  I  would  be  safe  for 
fifty  years  in  telling  the  old  story  of  the  mountaineer  and 
his  isolation.  Yet,  within  three  months,  I  read  in  a  chance 
newspaper  something  like  this :  "  The  Blank  &  Blank  Com- 
pany of  Indiana  will  spend  a  million  dollars  in  Letcher 
County  in  the  coming  year.  It  will  build  thirty  miles  of 
railroad  and  open  nineteen  coke  ovens."  And  why.''  Be- 
cause the  Lord  sent  a  freshet  which  ran  under  Old  Man 
Jackson's  kitchen  and  laid  bare  a  bed  of  coal.  In  the 
morning  he  could  get  up  with  his  pick  and  get  his  fuel 
from  underneath  his  house;  and  men  heard  about  it. 
Therefore,  where  never  in  all  the  world  had  the  shadow  of 
one  human  habitation  fallen  upon  another,  a  narrow  valley 
will  be  crammed  with  crowded  miners'  huts.  Those  pure 
mountain  streams  will  be  fouled  with  the  refuse  of  industry. 
Perchance  a  hundred  negroes  of  the  worst  type  —  the 
irresponsible,  unskilled  labor  class  —  will  be  thrust  into 
the  midst  of  a  quiet  mountain  county  which  has  scarcely 
seen  a  black  face,  and  the  worst  possibilities  of  the  race 
problem  will  be  presented ;  and  Old  Man  Jackson's  sons, 
who  have  never  been  in  bondage  to  any  man,  now  for  more 
money,  indeed,  than  they  have  ever  seen  in  their  lives,  will 
toil  under  ground. 

The  following  press   despatch  indicates   the  Industrial 

[3401 


THE    PASSING    OF    THE    MOUNTAINEER 

and  financial  magnitude   of  this   present  partitioning  of 
the  mountains  by  the  powers  that  be: 

Bristol,  Virginia,  March  10,  1908.  George  L. 
Carter,  President  of  the  South  &  Western  Rail- 
The  Partition-  ^oad,  has  just  closed  a  deal  for  an  im- 
ing  of  the  mense  tract  of  coal  and  timber  property 

Mountains  in  eastern  Kentucky,   including  ninety- 

by  Financial       two  per   cent   of   the   total   acreage   of 

County     and     extending     into 

other  counties.  The  property  was  purchased  in  his 
own  right,  and  some  thirty  thousand  acres  in  fee 
simple.  The  consideration  is  not  known.  This  pur- 
chase is  a  private  investment  of  Mr.  Carter,  as  the 
property  will  not  be  touched  by  the  South  and  West- 
em,  It  is  believed  that  his  ultimate  object  is  to  build 
another  railroad  through  Kentucky. 

The  Martz  Iron  and  Timber  Corporation,  of  Ken- 
tucky, of  which  Mr.  Carter  is  said  to  be  the  head,  has 
just  sold  to  J.  H.  Wallis  &  Co.,  Philadelphia  Bankers, 
a  tract  of  land  in  middle  Tennessee  and  another  in 
eastern  Kentucky  at  $44,000.  Attorney  T.  Irving 
Hart  of  Johnson  City,  in  the  employ  of  Mr.  Carter, 
has  just  returned  from  Philadelphia,  in  connection 
with  the  deal. 

South  <§•  Western  Meeting 

The  annual  meeting  of  the  stockholders  of  the 
South  &  Western  Railroad  of  Tennessee,  will  be  held 
in  the  office  of  President  Carter,  at  Johnson  City, 
March  22,  and  will  be  attended  by  Thomas  F.  Ryan 
of  New  York,  and  probably  Norman  B.  Ream  of 
Chicago,  Thomas  Jefferson  Coolidge  of  Boston,  and 
other  multi-millionaires  interested  in  the  project. 

The  company  now  has  ample  funds  to  complete 
the  road,  and  it  is  believed  that  it  will  be  ready  for 

[  341 1 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

operation  early  next  year.  It  is  now  about  seventy 
per  cent  completed,  and  will  require  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  $10,000,000  before  completed.  The  Clinch- 
field  Coal  Corporation,  which  is  allied  with  the  Ryan 
and  Carter  interests  and  owns  300,000  acres  of  coal 
land  in  southwest  Virginia,  is  actively  preparing  to 
open  the  mines  next  year,  and  the  $2,500,000  appro- 
priated last  year  for  this  purpose  is  being  expended. 
This  is  a  $30,000,000  corporation,  and  is  headed  by 
George  L.  Carter,  and  for  the  development  of  which 
property  the  South  &  Western  is  being  chiefly  built.^ 

What  will  happen  to  the  thousand  families  to  whom  this 
enormous  project  must  mean  sudden  dislocation  and  a  com- 
plete break  with  their  whole  scheme  of  life.'^  The  more 
fortunate  will  receive  a  few  hundred  dollars  for  their  land 
or  mineral  rights.  Utterly  unaccustomed  to  a  cash  econ- 
omy, they  will  not  know  how  to  use  their  sudden  wealth, 
and  will  squander  their  lifetime's  chance.  It  is  exactly 
parallel  to  the  case  of  the  negro  who  buys  a  top  buggy 
with  the  cotton  surplus  money  he  should  pay  on  a  farm. 
An  agent,  who  has  bought  up  such  rights  for  years,  tells 
me  that  rarely  is  the  mountaineer  wise  enough  to  re- 
establish himself  with  the  proceeds  of  his  sale.  Cut  from 
his  moorings  he  drifts ;  out  of  sight  of  his  landmarks 
he  is  lost.  There  is  no  sadder  human  fate  than  these 
banishments  decreed  by  progress. 

This  is  the  crisis  of  the  mountaineer,  the  sudden  pres- 
ence of  that  sifting  process  in  which  the  negro  is  caught 
The  Human  ^"  ^^^  ^'^^J-  I^  ^^^  means  progress  for  those 
Cost  of  who  can  enter  its  gates  of  opportunity ;   the 

Progress  chance  of  an  awakened  mind,  of  a  broader 

outlook ;   of  wealth,  with  all  its  possibilities.     But,  oh,  the 

>  Knoxville  Sentinel,  March  10,  1908. 
[342] 


THE    PASSING    OF    THE    MOUNTAINEER 

tragedy  of  it  for  those  not  able  to  meet  this  sudden  stress, 
and  its  unwonted  temptations ;  who  cannot  stand  before 
the  tremendous  physical  and  mental  and  moral  strain  of 
what  we  call  civilization !  What  special  need,  then,  that 
the  mountaineer  shall  have  just  now  the  steadying,  guid- 
ing influence  of  the  Christian  school  and  the  enlightened 
Christian  church! 

I  have  stood  at  twilight  in  a  wonderful  valley  in  Ten- 
nessee, where  iron  and  coal  he  side  by  side  in  the  moun- 
The  Parable  tains  and  are  rolled  down,  by  their  own 
of  the  Blast-  weight,  straight  to  the  blast-furnace  below.  I 
Furnace  have  watched  the  flare  of  the  furnace  fires 

against  the  deepening  gloom  of  the  mountainside;  I  have 
seen  the  molten  iron  run  like  fiery  serpents  down  its  path 
of  sand,  and  heard  the  fierce  hissing  as  the  dross,  shattered 
by  streams  of  water,  falls  into  the  waste-pit ;  and  it  has 
all  seemed  to  me  a  terrible  parable.  For  there  are  men  in 
these  mountains  as  well  as  minerals,  and  industry  digs 
them  out,  to  separate  them,  and  to  transform  those  who 
are  fit  unto  better  things.  But  industry  does  not  care  for 
the  poor,  the  weak,  the  handicapped.  God  does ;  and  in 
his  behalf  the  missionary  must  stand  to  supplement,  some- 
times to  neutralize,  the  harshly  beneficent  work  of  the 
milhonaire. 

II.    THE  EXPLOITATION  OF  THE  MOUNTAINS  BY 

LEISURE 

The  tender  mercies  of  the  millionaire  at  play,  even  when 
The  Passins?  touched  with  much  sentimental  philanthropy, 
"Spirit  of  the  are  no  less  cruel  than  those  of  industry.  Mrs. 
Mountains"  jVliles  puts  the  case  so  justly,  and  with  such 
fine  feehng,  that  I  quote  at  length: 

[343] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

One  day  a  hotel  is  built,  a  summer  settlement 
begun,  in  some  fastness  of  the  mountains  hitherto 
secluded  from  the  outer  world.  The  pure  air,  the 
mineral  waters,  are  advertised  abroad,  and  the  sum- 
mer people  begin  to  come  in.  Good  roads  are 
built  in  place  of  the  old  creek  beds  and  trails,  and 
rubber-tired  carriages  whirl  past  the  plodding  oxen 
and  mule  teams.  Handsome  cottages  are  erected  in 
contrast  to  the  cabins,  and  sunbonnets  turn  aside  in 
wonder  at  bright  creations  of  roses  and  chiffon.  The 
mountain  people  come  in  groups  to  look  on,  some  from 
homes  so  deep  in  the  woods  that  the  children  take 
fright  at  the  approach  of  even  a  home-made  "  tar- 
grinder  "  wagon.  They  are  easily  bewildered,  of 
course,  and  cannot  at  once  respond  to  the  need  of  a 
new  standard  of  values.  Perhaps  instead  of  a  hotel 
it  is  a  factory  or  a  mill  of  some  kind  that  presents  the 
thin  edge  of  the  wedge,  but  the  results  are  as  certain 
to  follow. 

When  the  cottages  are  occupied  the  trouble  be- 
gins. The  hotel  may  bring  its  own  servants ;  but 
for  the  summer  people  there  are  washing  and  sewing 
to  be  done  by  the  women,  and  work  in  the  gardens 
and  stables  by  the  men  of  the  place.  Later,  they  are 
hired  as  house  servants,  and  as  caretakers  during  the 
winter  season,  when  the  houses  must  stand  empty. 
All  this  is  hardly  to  be  avoided,  perhaps,  but  a  host 
of  evils  follow.  Here  is  an  easy  way  of  making  money, 
and  the  old  pursuits  are  abandoned.  Men  neglect 
their  farms  and  the  fashioning  of  sturdy  home-made 
implements  and  utensils.  It  is  easier,  far,  to  buy 
city  tools  with  city  money.  Their  teams  are  con- 
stantly in  demand  for  hauling,  moving  households  up 
in  the  spring  and  down  in  the  fall.  They  have  never 
worked  so  hard  before,  nor  been  so  well  paid.  The 
strenuous  life  has  laid  hold  of  them.     It  seems  for  a 

[344] 


THE    PASSING    OF    THE    MOUNTAINEER 

time  that  better  days  have  dawned  for  the  half  starved 
and  the  ignorant  among  us. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  false  ambitions  creep  in? 
The  lady  of  the  hotel  or  cottage,  when  she  packs  her 
trunks  to  go  home,  leaves  sundry  trinkets  out  for  the 
mountain  girl  who  has  served  her  —  half-worn  cloth- 
ing such  as  the  poor  child  has  never  seen  before, 
trimmed  hats,  books  and  magazines,  if  she  can  read. 
The  recipient  plans  for  a  similar  donation  next  year. 
She  does  not  willingly  return  to  sunbonnet  and  home- 
spun. Her  old  mother  cares  little  for  the  new  clothes, 
but  sees  at  once  how  much  easier  it  is  to  buy  blan- 
kets than  to  spin  and  weave.  So  the  loom  and  wheel 
are  consigned  to  the  barn  loft,  where  they  fall  to 
pieces  with  dry-rot,  and  the  woman  forgets  her  cover- 
let patterns.  The  hand  of  the  worker  in  wood  and 
metal  loses  its  cunning.  The  growing  lads  scarcely 
learn  to  shoe  a  horse ;  they  are  all  too  busy  working 
for  the  city  people. 

The  value  of  money,  the  false  importance  of  riches, 
is  evident  to  their  minds  before  the  need  of  education. 
They  become  avaricious,  they  who  were  wont  to  share 
their  last  chew  of  tobacco,  and  put  the  children  to 
earning,  by  picking  berries  or  what  not,  instead  of 
sending  them  to  school.  For  by  this  time  the  city 
people  have  helped  to  build  a  schoolhouse  in  the  dis- 
trict. The  old-time  hospitality  is  crowded  out  of 
existence,  and  under  the  influence  of  women,  who 
imagine  that  a  man  who  does  not  know  when  to  take 
off  his  hat  cannot  possibly  be  courteous,  the  fine  old 
manners  disappear.  The  old  music  is  supplanted  by 
cheap  Sunday-school  song-books,  that  contain  shaped 
notes  and  directions  so  clear  that  the  wayfaring  man 
who  has  learned  to  sing  on  the  do-re-mi-fa-sol  basis, 
though  he  knows  not  one  key  from  another,  need  not 
err   therein.      The  homespuns,   with   their   delightful 

[345] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

dull  colors  of  root  and  bark,  are  ousted  by  aniline- 
dyed  calicoes  which  do  not  wear  more  than  a  season. 
The  beauty  of  simple  smoke-browned  interiors  is 
blotted  out  with  newspapers  pasted,  coat  upon  coat, 
on  the  walls  for  additional  warmth,  since  paper  is 
easier  come  by  than  substantial  chinking.  Druggist 
barrel-house  liquor  takes  the  place  of  the  clear,  fiery 
product  of  the  still,  making  the  evil  of  drunkenness 
ten  times  worse.  The  old  dances  are  given  over  to 
rowdies.  A  new  standard  of  morals  is  set  up  amid 
the  confusion.  Even  the  old  religion  is  passing, 
laughed  away  by  empty-headed  ones  who  never  could 
understand  a  thing  so  sacred.  This  people  who  have 
no  servant  class  are  constantly  made  to  feel  them- 
selves inferior  to  the  idle  newcomers,  and  so  fall  into 
servility.  The  old  dignity  has  slipped  from  them  be- 
fore they  are  aware.^ 

I  know  a  mountain  community  in  which  rich  Charles- 
tonians  have  their  own  church.  They  bring  their  pastor 
D  b"  In-  ^"^  ^^^  summer  and  hold  services  for  the 
fluence  of  the  transient  population.  Then  they  lock  the 
Tourist  church  and  go  away,  leaving  the  natives  to 

themselves.  The  lonely  missionary  teacher,  shut  in  with 
them  by  impassable  winter  roads,  does  not  find  the  influence 
left  by  the  careless  flitters  altogether  sweet.  Tlie  native 
lads,  who  have  made  easy  money  driving  smart  rigs  full  of 
tourists  to  admire  the  mountain  scenery,  prefer  to  loaf 
rather  than  to  go  to  school  until  next  summer.  Their 
wholesome  standards  of  life  have  been  overthrown.  They 
see  only  the  lighter  side  of  more  privileged  civilization, 
pick  up  its  vices  and  seldom  understand  its  Titanic  in- 
dustry and  profounder  meaning.     Thus  the  mountaineer 

1  Miles,  "  The  Spirit  of  the  Mountains,"  pp.  190-194. 
[346] 


THE    PASSING    OF    THE    MOUNTAINEER 

falls  into  the  gap  between  the  old  and  the  new.     The  spirit 

of  the  mountains  is  broken  before  the  spirit  of  the  modern 

world  captures  him  in  its  imperious  but  courageous  grip. 

The  saddest  thing  about  the  millionaire's  ministry  to 

the  mountains,  whether  of  work  or  of  play,  is  that  it  is  so 

T   1    4 1       largely  exploitation   rather  than  permanent 

Industry  and  &    J         r  ... 

Leisure  both  occupancy.  Just  now  the  nation  is  waking 
Exploit  rather  up  to  the  bitter  fact  that  much  of  its  in- 
ccupy  (Justrial  progress  has  been  a  squandering  of 
natural  resources ;  and  waste  has  been  nowhere  more  ram- 
pant than  in  the  South.  I  shall  never  forget  the  passion- 
ate appeal  of  one  of  the  educational  evangelists  of  Ten- 
nessee who  argued  that  his  state,  however  burdened  with 
debt,  must  educate  its  mountain  people  in  order  to  end  its 
exploitation  by  alien  capital;  an  exploitation  which  is  not 
only  sapping  it  of  present  profits  but  will  be  sure  to  leave 
its  land  stripped  of  original  wealth.  The  mountains  are 
full  of  decaying  coal  towns  whose  last  state  is  infinitely 
worse  than  the  first.  John  Fox's  latest  story  vividly  de- 
scribes the  collapse  of  land  and  mining  schemes  and  their 
effect  upon  an  Appalachian  county  seat. 

The  story  of  the  lumber  industry  as  managed  by  Ameri- 
can commercial  wisdom  is  one  of  continuous  economic 
atrocities.  When  the  denuded  mountainsides  hurl  down 
their  torrents  upon  the  lowlands,  overwhelming  the  Caro- 
linas,  and  inundating  Augusta,  the  nation  begins  to  hear 
and  pity  the  lowlands.    These  have  tongues,  a  press,  promi- 

T5  •  u-  xu  nent  representatives  in  Congress,  which  even 
Ravishing  the  ^  <. 

Mountains  of  Speaker  Cannon  cannot  utterly'  and  forever 
Beauty  as  well  ignore ;  hence  agitation  for  an  Appalachian 
^     ^  forest  reserve.     But  the  first  tragedy  of  the 

fallen  forest  is  that  of  the  mountains  themselves,  which 
are  voiceless.     The  thin  soil  of  their  slopes  and  shoulders 

[347  1 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

is  swept  away ;  stones  bury  the  bottom  farms,  while  sadder 
still,  the  people  are  robbed  of  their  long  heritage  of  the 
beauty  of  the  hills  —  their  one  priceless  possession.  Or, 
with  the  tourist,  comes  the  freebooter  florist,  whose  per- 
nicious activity  is  exterminating  some  of  the  most  charm- 
ing winter  greenery  of  the  Carolinas  to  deck  Northern 
feast  or  fast.  Must  we  bury  our  dead  under  branches 
filched  from  our  Appalachian  brother,  leaving  his  body  to 
lie  amid  crumbling  stumps  and  his  dust  to  be  washed  from 
his  naked  hillside.'* 

With  the  passing  whim  of  fashion,  winter  resorts  come 
and  go.  The  wreckage  of  a  million  dollar  hotel  near 
Cumberland  Gap,  bought  for  a  song,  now  houses  a  moun- 
tain school.  Two  other  schools  to  my  knowledge  have  ac- 
quired buildings  under  similar  conditions.  The  toilsome 
climb  up  Walden  Ridge  to  Grand  View  Institute  recently 
made  every  brick  for  a  new  dormitory  cost  double  by  the 
time  it  arrived.  A  railroad  used  to  run  up  there,  but  was 
abandoned  with  the  waning  popularity  of  the  region  as  a 
health  center. 

Tliese  ebbing  waves  of  industry  and  leisure  cause  some 
of  the  chief  embarrassments  of  missionary  policy.  Fre- 
A  Tragical  quently  what  seemed  a  dozen  years  back   a 

Recessional  promising  and  strategic  center  of  mountain 
hfe,  turns  out  to  be  a  decaying  community,  disillusioned, 
disheartened,  hopeful  neither  for  church  nor  school.  Its 
more  energetic  people,  the  natural  leaders,  abandon  it. 
The  foreign  blood  and  capital  which  tried  to  develop  it 
are  withdrawn.  Sometimes  they  were  genuine  home-seekers 
trying  to  naturalize  the  fruit  industry  or  even  general 
agriculture  in  the  milder  climate  of  the  mountains.  Some- 
how they  do  not  stay.  Decaying  homes  and  deserted 
schoolhouses  are  their  tragical  recessional. 

[3481 


THE    PASSING    OF    THE    MOUNTAINEER 

Now  all  this  raises  the  question  of  the  residual  strength 
of  the  hills  to  hold  back  permanently  the  fuller  tides  of 
The  Residual  civilization.  The  New  York  Central  Rail- 
Strength  of  way  following  up  the  water  level  of  the  Hud- 
the  Hills  gQjj  Iq  iYj^q  Mohawk  gateway  can  travel  sev- 

eral extra  miles  to  Buffalo  and  still  have  immense  perma- 
nent advantage  over  its  nearest  competitor,  which  must  Uft 
its  trains  over  the  comparatively  slight  Alleghany  barrier. 
All  the  resources  of  the  modem  world  cannot  neutralize 
an  additional  thousand  feet  of  elevation.  How  much  less 
will  they  quickly  obliterate  the  height  and  breadth  of  the 
Southern  Appalachians !     Thus  Brigham  writes : 

A  few  tons  of  coal  are  now  enough  to  overcome 
the  Appalachian  barrier,  and  it  is  from  this  point  of 
view,  apparently,  that  a  recent  writer  treats  the  Ap- 
palachians lightly,  as  if  they  were  no  barrier.  They 
do  not  now  stop  or  turn  aside  the  movements  of  men 
and  commodities,  but  they  still  interpose  a  peculiar 
belt  of  climate,  soil,  field,  and  forest  between  the  At- 
lantic and  the  Mississippi,  and  their  influence  in  early 
days  was  enormous.  Geographic  influences  are  no 
less  real  because  they  blend  with  other  types  of  con- 
trol in  the  maturity  of  society.^ 

So  much  is  clear:  the  old  man  of  the  mountains  is 
doomed.  Enough  of  civilization,  especially  of  its  e\als,  is 
sure  to  come  to  break  his  dreams  and  wreck  his  peace,  while 
the  mountain  barrier,  as  a  stubborn  physical  fact,  remains 
to  make  the  bringing  of  the  better  opportunities  of  life 
a  slow  and  difficult  task  for  the  statesman  and  pliilan- 
thropist. 

•  Brigham,  "  Geographic  Influences  in  American  History,"  p.  318. 


349] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 


III.    THE  UPLIFT  OF  THE  MOUNTAINS  BY 
EDUCATION 

This  is  one  of  the  two  great  national  missionary  prob- 
lems geographically  located  in  the  South,  toward  the  solv- 
ing of  which  the  organized  Christian  philanthropy  of  the 
North  has  reached  out  a  brotherly  hand.  Shall  these  vast 
and  impending  changes  make  for  human  welfare  and  the 
nation's  moral  strength?  Because  of  the  crisis  of  the 
exploitation  by  industry  and  by  leisure  —  because  both  of 
these  disturbing  forces  are  exploitations  and  consequently 
careless  as  to  their  human  fruits  —  and  because  the  moun- 
tains remain,  even  when  exploited,  a  molding  and  re- 
straining power,  the  work  of  the  missionary  is  of  central 
importance.  May  there  be  a  transformation  as  well  as  an 
exploitation,  from  old  into  new  men  of  the  mountains  — 
men  keeping  all  pristine  virtues  yet  assimilating  them  to 
the  better  spirit  of  the  age.'' 

Relatively  speaking,  as  a  problem  of  an  unassimilated 

human  mass,  this  problem  is  many-fold  smaller  than  the 

Relative  Maw-     other  one.     There  are  at  least  ten,  or  prob- 

nitude  of  ably  twenty  times  as  many  un-Americanized 

ou    ern    ro  -    jjga.j.ogg  jj^  ^}^g  South  as  there  are  mountain- 
lems:  JNegro  '^ 

vs.  Moun-  eers.      The   negro's   present   deficiency,    too, 

taineer  is  deeper  seated  and  his  prospects  more  dubi- 

ous than  theirs.  From  the  standpoint  of  the  nation,  also, 
the  negro  problem  is  the  more  dangerous  and  pressing. 
It  confessedly  contains  social  dynamite,  while  the  forgot- 
ten highlander  might  rot  amid  his  stumps  without  dis- 
turbing the  preoccupation  of  the  greater  and  busier  world. 
Thus,  just  because  it  is  less  directly  emphasized  in  popu- 
lar agitation,  or  backed  by  self-interest,  the  regeneration 

[350] 


Black  Mountain  Acapesiy,  Evauts,  Ky, 


Elementary  Grades,  Black  Mountain  AcADEiMY 


THE    PASSING    OF    THE    MOUNTAINEER 

of  the  mountains  makes  a  profound  and  unalloyed  appeal 
to  the  Christian  conscience. 

The  missionary  agencies  which  seek  to  do  this  work  fol- 
low policies  and  use  methods  generally  similar  to  those 
illustrated  in  activities  for  the  negro.  As  in  his  case, 
their  work  will  be  illustrated  by  the  typical  but  uniquely 
unsectarian  institutions  of  the  American  Missionary 
Association. 

Its  educational  activities  are  frankly  cooperative  with 

and  supplemental  to  the  public  school  systems  of  the  Ap- 

f^  ..  palachian   states.      The  will  to   educate   the 

Cooperation         ^ 

of  Missionary  mountaineer  is  everywhere  present,  as  the 
Agencies  with  will  to  educate  the  negro  is  not.  In  the 
former  case,  therefore,  it  is  merely  a  ques- 
tion of  the  state's  ability,  and  the  awakening  of  the  moun- 
tain districts  to  add  local  responsibility  to  the  state's  re- 
sources. Wise  and  heroically  conducted  campaigns  to 
this  end  are  being  persistently  carried  on  throughout  the 
South,  and  preeminently  in  the  mountain  states,  to  which, 
through  the  General  Educational  Board  and  the  Peabody 
Fund,  Northern  philanthropy  has  largely  contributed. 
The  building  up  of  state  school  systems,  on  the  one  hand, 
has  largely  distracted  interest  and  gifts  from  the  more 
modest  work  of  the  missionary  institutions ;  on  the  other, 
it  has  progressively  relieved  them  of  burden  and  will  in- 
creasingly do  so.  The  South  is  not  yet  able  to  educate 
its  children  without  help ;  but  as  it  becomes  able  it  will 
develop  white  schools  first.  Thus  for  philanthropy  the 
mountains  are  not  merely  a  lesser  problem  than  that  of 
the  negro,  but  a  more  rapidly  diminishing  one.  Where 
mountain  mission  schools  exist,  cooperation  with  the  state 
is  close.  At  present  all  of  the  American  Missionary  Asso- 
ciation's  mountain   institutions,    save   one,   receive   public 

[351] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

funds.  These  pay  but  a  small  proportion  of  the  expenses 
of  maintenance  and  contribute  nothing  to  the  support  of 
higher  grades  of  education ;  but  they  secure  the  prestige 
—  and  sometimes  the  educational  handicap  —  of  state 
supervision,  and  express  the  cooperative  spirit.  In  the 
crusade  for  better  public  schools,  missionary  principals 
have  been  the  educational  leaders  of  their  regions.  Some 
have  served  as  county  superintendents  of  education.  The 
preparation  of  teachers  has  been  a  chief  element  of  all 
missionary  endeavor.  Pleasant  Hill  Academy,  Tennessee, 
has  sometimes  put  fifty  public  school-teachers  into  the 
field  in  a  single  year. 

With  this  institution  we  may  begin  our  review  of  typical 
mountain  institutions  of  the  American  Missionary  Asso- 
ciation, ranging  from  elementary  schools  to  colleges  and 
theological  seminaries. 

Pleasant  Hill  Academy  is  a  secondary  school  of  the 
older  type.  Its  field,  Cumberland  County,  is  notable  upon 
Typical  Mis-  *^^  census  maps  for  the  poverty  of  popu- 
sionary  Insti-  lation  and  of  agricultural  production.  Its 
tutions  of  three  hundred  pupils  come  from  a  surround- 

Gn^e-^Pleas-  ^^S  region,  one  of  the  most  backward  in  the 
ant  Hill  United  States.      Some  sixty  of  these  pupils 

Academy  a,re  in  the  two  years'  normal  course  following 

the  elementary  school.  There  are  a  dozen  teachers,  includ- 
ing special  instructors  in  music  and  girls'  industries.  While 
boys'  industries  are  not  at  present  systematically  taught, 
the  school  has  its  own  sawmill,  and  has  on  occasion  burned 
its  own  brick,  out  of  which  it  has  built  two  three-story 
dormitories.  This  year  a  girls'  industrial  building  was 
erected,  chiefly  by  student  labor.  Pleasant  Hill  has  the 
reputation  of  making  a  dollar  go  further  than  it  does 
anywhere  else. 

[352] 


THE    PASSING    OF    THE    MOUNTAINEER 

Around  the  school  has  grown  up  a  modest  and  whole- 
some community  life.  There  are  half-a-dozen  stores  and 
shops  and  a  cluster  of  homes,  much  superior  to  those  in 
the  neighboring  settlements.  Dignified  and  intelligent  re- 
ligious services  draw  splendid  audiences.  The  attendance 
at  a  mid-week  prayer-meeting  would  be  a  surprise  and  a 
gratification  in  a  metropolitan  church.  The  school  brings 
also  a  superior  grade  of  lecturers  and  entertainers.  Prob- 
ably no  mountain  institution  has  so  completely  become 
naturalized  in  the  heart  of  its  region.  There  will  prob- 
ably some  day  be  a  high  school  at  the  county  seat,  four- 
teen miles  distant,  but  the  Academy  is  founded  in  the 
affections  of  the  people.  It  has  identified  itself  with  their 
interests.  Even  though  the  region  should  develop  ade- 
quate public  schools  it  will  be  needed,  because  of  its  sen- 
timental value.  Dozens  of  New  England  academies  are 
not  educationally  necessary,  but  antedating  the  public 
school  systems,  they  have  historic  sanction.  Pleasant  Hill 
Academy  has  a  similar  guaranty  of  permanence. 

Grand  View  Normal  Institute,  a  school  of  about  the 
same  size,  situated  in  an  adjoining  county,  shows  a  moun- 
Grand  View  tain  institution  in  process  of  change  from  the 
Institute  old  missionary  type  into  one  adapting  itself 

better  to  serve  the  expanding  needs  and  economic  prob- 
lems of  the  mountains.  Its  four  years'  secondary  course 
prepares  for  the  University  of  Tennessee,  but  its  particu- 
lar ideal  is  to  become  an  agricultural  high  school.  A 
hundred-acre  farm,  including  considerable  tillable  land, 
has  recently  been  added  to  its  domain,  and  a  graduate  of 
a  Northern  agricultural  college  has  begun  the  task  of 
appl3dng  the  scientific  principles  of  farming  to  mountain 
rural  conditions.  The  raising  of  general  crops  will  not 
be   largely   attempted,   but   gardening,   horticulture,   for- 

23  [  353  1 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

estry,  and  stock-raising  are  all  possible  on  the  Cumber- 
land Plateau.  The  science  course  in  the  high  school  has 
been  reconstructed  in  correlation  with  practical  farming 
operations.  Laboratories  and  workrooms  have  been  pro- 
vided for  instruction  in  domestic  science  and  household 
management.  A  shop  for  the  teaching  of  farm  mechanics 
has  been  erected  and  awaits  equipment.  Grand  View  is 
about  equally  distant  from  six  county  seats,  and  the  center 
of  an  area  which  in  no  human  possibility  will  have  ade- 
quate common  school  facilities  for  generations.  Its  per- 
manence will  depend  upon  a  continuing  need,  but  also 
essentially  upon  its  adaptation  to  practical  local  interests. 
Of  graded  elementary  schools,  with  five  or  six  teachers 
and  from  one  to  two  hundred  pupils,  Joppa  Institute, 
p,,  in   Cullman    County,   Alabama,   is    an   inter- 

Schools;  esting    illustration.       The    settlement    itself 

Joppa  In-  consists  of  some  thirty  cabins,  with  two  or 

^ '  "  ^  three    stores,    a    blacksmith    shop,    and    two 

church-houses.  By  far  the  largest  dwelling  is  our  eight- 
room  teachers'  home.  A  little  distance  from  it  stands  a 
well-built  and  commodious  schoolhouse.  To-day  the  sixth 
grade  happens  to  be  reading  essays  on  pioneer  life.  The 
wise  Bostonian,  who  makes  the  school-books,  thinks  it 
important  that  the  children  of  the  generation  understand 
the  life  of  their  great-great-grandparents  of  Massachu- 
setts Bay,  wliich  he  describes  in  great  detail  —  the  clear- 
ing of  the  forest,  the  building  of  the  log-cabin,  the  little 
patch  of  farm  amidst  the  stumps,  the  hunt  for  venison  and 
wild  turkeys,  and  the  solemn  procession  of  Puritans  to 
the  meeting-house,  each  man  with  a  gun  in  his  hand.  The 
children  faithfully  reproduce  this  valuable  information  as 
an  exercise  in  English,  while  as  a  matter  of  fact  every 
one  of  these  experiences  is  a  living  reality  for  them,  or 

[354] 


THE    PASSING    OF    THE    MOUNTAINEER 

at  least  a  memory  of  the  present  generation  at  Joppa. 
They  know  at  first  hand  what  it  is  to  grub  out  a  Httle 
farm  in  the  forest;  they  are  hving  to-day  in  log-cabins; 
the  larder  is  still  furnished  with  game ;  and  their  men  too 
often  "  tote "  guns  to  church.  The  school-bookmaker 
forgot  that  we  have  "  contemporary  ancestors." 

In  the  narrow  cabins  of  this  little  settlement  were 
gathered  some  thirty  pupils  from  other  communities. 
There  were  no  decent  accommodations  for  them,  no  op- 
portunity for  studious  quiet,  and  frequently  an  undesir- 
able crowding  of  boys  and  girls  in  the  same  house.  Some- 
times whole  families  came  to  keep  house  for  themselves 
in  unfinished  attics.  Such  conditions  of  life  were  no  ad- 
vance upon  the  homes  from  which  they  came,  and  the  best 
the  school  could  do  for  them  scarcely  overcame  the  handi- 
cap of  their  bad  accomodations.  It  was  felt  that  we  must 
make  a  place  where  such  students  could  have  proper  over- 
sight and  the  influence  of  a  well-ordered  Christian  home. 
There  was  a  large  store  building  which  some  too  ambitious 
villager  had  begun  and  had  been  unable  to  finish.  It 
stood  exactly  between  the  home  and  the  school  property. 
This  was  purchased,  with  some  two  acres  of  land,  and 
transformed  into  a  dining-hall  and  dormitory.  One  is 
almost  ashamed  to  tell  how  little  it  has  all  cost.  The 
lady  teachers  and  student  girls,  under  the  charge  of 
a  competent  matron,  occupy  this  building.  The  old 
teachers'  home  has  become  a  dormitory  for  boys  under 
the  charge  of  the  principal  and  his  wife.  That  we  dared 
to  attempt  to  make  this  great  addition  to  our  equipment 
was  due  to  the  fact  that  the  principal,  a  veteran  of  mis- 
sion service  in  Japan,  was  an  expert  carpenter  and  builder 
as  well  as  preacher  and  teacher.  The  community  cooper- 
ated most  cordially,  contributing  the  hauling  of  all  mate- 
rial and  much  of  the  work.     A  fund  for  furnishing  the 

[355] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

new  building  was  solicited  by  the  teachers.  A  roomy  but 
rickety  barn  went  with  the  place,  and  this  has  been  re- 
built so  as  to  include  a  commodious  shop  for  manual  train- 
ing. There  is  sufficient  land  for  considerable  work  in  agri- 
culture, and  the  institution  must  have  a  horse,  cows,  pigs, 
and  poultry.  With  these  it  might  not  merely  educate  its 
pupils,  but  also  lead  the  community  in  rural  efficiency. 

Thus  runs  the  simple  story.  The  warrant  for  such  a 
school's  existence  is  the  extreme  present  need  of  its  neigh- 
borhood and  constituency.  It  is  admirably  adapting 
itself  at  small  expense  to  the  day's  task.  Teachers  from 
the  hills  are  already  demanding  an  advanced  course  to 
help  them  meet  the  rising  educational  standards  of  the 
state.  As  to  the  future,  we  shall  see  when  the  time  comes ; 
meanwhile,  and  for  its  own  place,  its  service  is  indispensable. 

The  little  mill  village  of  Lynn,  North  Carolina,  in  the 
upper  Pacolet  Valley,  shows  the  missionary  school  stand- 
Lynn  a  School  ^^S  ^y  t^^  mountaineer  in  his  hour  of  indus- 
in  a  Mill  trial  and   social   transition.      Gathered  here 

Village  ijj  rows  of  company  houses,  he  has  put  off 

many  of  the  external  peculiarities  of  his  isolated  cabin 
life.  He  has  changed  his  clothes,  but  not  his  manner  of 
speech,  nor  his  inner  habit  of  thought.  The  school  is 
helping  him  to  modify  both.  Winter  residents  from  the 
North,  who  befriended  many  such  enterprises,  and  the 
Lynn  mill  owner,  have,  in  time  past,  cooperated  in  the 
school's  support.  There  are  two  teachers  and  some  sev- 
enty pupils.  Last  year  they  had  hard  times  in  the  cotton 
industry,  and  the  mill  ran  with  a  depleted  labor  force, 
consequently  the  school  was  full.  In  normal  times  it  is 
a  great  temptation  to  the  parents  to  send  their  children 
to  work  instead,  and  the  philanthropy  of  the  employer, 
when  he  is  shorthanded,  is  not  altogether  proof  against 
his  covctousness  of  the  child  as  a  worker. 

[356] 


THE    PASSING    OF    THE    MOUNTAINEER 

The  schoolhouse  is  the  community's  sole  public  build- 
ing. Here  in  turn  preachers  from  the  neighboring  town 
conduct  services.  The  teachers  assist  the  Sunday-school, 
devise  entertainments,  and  make  their  mission  home  a 
center  of  social  life  for  the  young  people.  They  go  into 
the  homes  of  the  village  with  counsel  and  good  cheer. 
With  an  additional  worker  the  enterprise  might  be  con- 
verted into  a  full-fledged  social  settlement.  As  it  is,  what- 
ever Lynn  has  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  inspiration 
must  radiate  from  two  devoted  women ;  otherwise  it  is 
drowned  in  the  clatter  of  the  spindles. 

Ten  miles  or  so  up  the  mountam  at  Saluda  is  a  girls' 
boarding-school,  a  favorite  type  of  missionary  institution. 
The  Girls'  T^^G  mistress  of  the  mountain  home  holds  so 

Seminary,  critical    a   place    in  "the    redemption    of   her 

Saluda  people    that    she    deserves    special    training. 

She  needs  to  be  taught  equally  how  to  cook  and  how  to 
hope;  how  to  tend  a  household  and  also  how  to  nourish 
ideals  before  she  comes  to  have  a  home  of  her  own.  She 
will  almost  surely  teach  in  the  log  schoolhouse  of  her 
settlement.  There  come  also  planters'  daughters  from 
the  lowlands  over  the  South  Carolina  border,  from  homes 
less  poor  but  equally  crude  and  devoid  of  the  graces  of 
life.  Added  to  these  are  the  children  of  a  few  winter 
residents  and  the  village  boys  as  day  pupils.  All  told, 
they  make  a  company  of  some  one  hundred  and  twenty-five. 

School  and  home  occupy,  in  common,  an  ancient  and 
decrepit  building  set  up  in  a  gully  in  a  day  when  the 
proximity  of  a  spring  was  the  chief  consideration.  Its 
stairways  and  halls  are  so  illogical  and  labyrinthine  that 
visitors  sometimes  threaten  to  unwind  a  skein  of  yam  to 
help  them  find  their  way  out  again.  Yet  here,  in  the 
companionship  of  half  a  dozen  true  and  gentle  women  from 
the  North,  the  mountain  schoolgirl  learns  lessons  of  char- 

[357] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

acter  and  taste.  Instinctively  she  catches  new  ways  of 
dressing  her  hair  and  gathering  her  skirts.  Her  slackness 
is  partly  drilled  out  of  her,  and  partly  crowded  out,  by 
new  desires  and  incentives  to  personal  adornment.  Apathy 
gives  way  to  interest.  I  recall  a  rare  day  when  a  group 
of  such  girls  had  an  outing  down  in  a  valley  where  a 
gentle-souled  man  had  placed  a  pipe-organ  in  a  gothic 
chapel.  The  tempered  light  streamed  through  cathedral 
glass,  and  shadows  plaj'^ed  in  the  recesses  of  the  timbered 
ceiling,  while  he  poured  his  own  tenderness  and  devotion 
through  the  organ  tones.  The  girls'  eyes  were  big  with 
wonder.  They  said  little,  but  the  memory  will  never  die. 
New  depths  and  dimensions  of  experience  were  added  to 
the  old  enchantments  of  mountain  spring  and  the  glow 
of  the  full-blown  rhododendron.  Thus  simple  opportun- 
ity expands  the  mountain  maid's  heart.  The  dilapidated 
mission-school  building  is  no  longer  an  advance  upon  her 
standards  of  thought.  She  deserves  a  better  one,  and 
must  have  it  —  a  worthy  girl's  home,  safe,  sanitary,  and 
beautiful.  The  project  has  been  begun.  The  village  has 
given  a  hilltop  overlooking  the  old  gully  and  promises  a 
thousand  dollars  —  no  small  sum  considering  its  re- 
sources —  while  the  release  of  certain  funds  through  the 
progress  of  the  mountains,  elsewhere,  will  permit  the  Mis- 
sionary Association  to  erect  a  new  dormitory  at  Saluda. 

Outside  of  the  actual  mountains,  as  its  name  sug- 
gests —  though  in  sight  of  them  —  is  Piedmont  College, 

„.  ,     T  at  Demorest,   in   northern   Georgia.      It   in- 

Higher  In-  '  '^ 

stitutions:  cludes    elementary,    secondary,    and    college 

Piedmont  courses.     As  in  the  case  of  the  higher  in- 

^^^  stitutions  for  negroes,  only  a  small  fraction 

of  its  students  are  of  collegiate  grade. 

The  village  of  Demorest  was  founded  in  the  eighties, 
by  a  company  of  Northern  health  and  home  seekers,  who 

[3581 


THE    PASSING    OF    THE    MOUNTAINEER 

sought  to  give  their  children  school  privileges  which 
Georgia  was  not  furnishing,  by  the  establishment  of  a  local 
institute.  With  the  years  the  original  colony  was  broken 
up  and  dispersed,  while  the  community  grew  by  the  coming 
of  recruits  from  the  neighboring  Appalachian  counties. 
Thus  the  opportunity  of  educational  ministry  to  the  na- 
tive population  increased  at  the  same  time  that  the  hotels, 
boarding-houses,  and  other  monuments  of  the  colony's 
adventurous  youth  were  on  the  market  for  a  song.  The 
situation  was  seized  upon  by  representatives  of  the  small 
but  able  and  aggressive  Congregational  element  in  Georgia, 
centering  in  Atlanta,  as  an  opportunity  for  the  establish- 
ment of  an  institution  which  should  both  express  their 
denominational  aspirations  and  serve  the  roughest  and 
neediest  section  of  the  state.  In  its  missionary  aspect  it 
appealed  also  to  the  American  Missionary  Association, 
which  finally  acquired  the  property;  it  took  over  the  In- 
stitute on  a  long-time  lease,  and  has  since  been  its  chief 
source  of  support.  The  property  consists  of  four  large 
and  several  smaller  buildings,  commodious  enough,  but 
scattered,  particularly  on  the  several  hilltops  of  the  vil- 
lage, and  ill  adapted  to  school  purposes.  A  board  of 
trustees  consisting  of  local  citizens  and  representatives 
of  the  Association  and  of  the  Georgia  Congregational 
churches  manages  the  institution,  subject  to  the  approval 
of  its  financial  budget  by  the  Association. 

The  situation  is  not  without  its  problems.  Though 
not  superior  in  equipment  nor  in  results  to  the  more 
Problems  of  modest  schools,  the  elementary  and  secondary 
the  Higher  courses    of    Piedmont    College  —  wliich    nu- 

Institutions  merically  are  over  nineteen-twentieths  of  it 
—  are  conducted  at  unusual  expense.  This  is  because  they 
are  included  in  a  collegiate  scheme  of  administration  and 

[359  ] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

remuneration.  The  interesting  and  inspiring  plan  of  unit- 
ing North  and  South,  highland  and  lowland,  in  commun- 
ity and  school  is  also  expensive.  A  student  minority, 
coming  from  the  cotton  belt,  and  even  from  the  cities,  is 
not  satisfied  with  a  standard  of  living  which  seems  ample 
to  mountain  boys  and  girls.  The  lingering  Northern 
tradition  in  Demorest  is  favorable  to  culture,  but  costs 
money.  To  attract  and  hold  students  of  collegiate  grade, 
especially  in  a  state  well  supplied  with  higher  institutions 
as  Georgia  is,  the  academic  fashions  of  wealthier  schools 
have  to  be  imitated.  This  makes  their  financial  support 
difficult,  and  their  dependence  on  scholarship  aid  corre- 
spondingly great.  Is  it  justifiable  to  take  of  scant  mis- 
sionary funds  to  do  at  Piedmont  what  (except  for  the 
college  department)  is  done  elsewhere  at  much  less 
expense? 

There  is  only  one  justification,  namely,  that  Piedmont 
shall  train  leaders,  that  it  shall  make  standards  of  the 
Th  ■  T  ffi-  higher  life  for  picked  men  of  the  mountains, 
cation  in  the  as  they  return  to  share  the  transformation 
Training  of  of  their  native  sects,  or  follow  opportunity 
to  the  lowlands  and  the  city.  It  is  a  young 
institution,  as  yet  an  experiment,  but  a  brave  and  hopeful 
experiment,  which,  under  gallant  and  tireless  leaders,  is 
steadily  endeavoring  to  make  itself  a  vital  and  indispensa- 
ble part  in  the  redemption  of  the  twenty-six  Appalachian 
counties  of  North  Georgia  and  of  their  needy  and  abound- 
ing human  wealth. 

The  case  of  this  institution  suggests  two  principles 
The  Inevitable  °^  missionary  pohcy,  which  every  sup- 
Cost  of  Such  porter  of  such  endeavor  in  behalf  of  our 
Training  unassimilated   peoples  should  understand. 

First,   the   inevitable    cost    of   training    for   leadership. 

[  360  1 


Professors  and  Students,  Atlanta  Theological  Seminary 


Girls'  Dormitory,  Piedmont  College 


THE    PASSING    OF    THE    MOUNTAINEER 

Provision  for  the  higher  education  of  any  people  must 
necessarily  approximate  that  of  the  standard  institutions 
of  the  nation.  Shorn  of  all  extravagances  and  reduced 
to  the  lowest  terms  of  support  sufficient  for  efficiency, 
colleges  must  have  a  collegiate  grade  of  instruction  and 
equipment.  Their  product  must  compete  on  behalf  of 
their  people  with  our  best.  If  they  are  really  to  furnish 
competent  leaders  they  must  have  adequate  fitting.  Mis- 
sionary agencies  should  be  very  slow  to  undertake  the 
responsibility  of  colleges,  and  very  insistent  that,  after 
due  testing,  they  be  either  properly  supported  or  aban- 
doned as  higher  institutions. 

Second,  the  prior  claim  of  the  principle  of  diffusion 
of  opportunity.  This  is  the  heart  of  missionary  obliga- 
rp,    p  .  tion.     It  must  minister  widely  and  in  places 

Claim  of  the  of  special  need.  This  principle  is  funda- 
Diffusion  of  mental  from  the  standpoint  of  assimilating 
ppo  urn  y  |.j^g  under- Americanized ;  it  is  also  inevit- 
able in  view  of  the  relation  of  a  missionary  board  to  its 
constituency.  The  annual  support  of  such  a  board  comes 
chiefly  from  armies  of  relatively  small  givers,  many  of 
whom  are  by  no  means  able  to  send  their  children  to  col- 
lege, from  feeble  churches,  from  children  and  young 
people.  They  are  told  of  the  needy  masses  of  alien 
blood  and  narrow  opportunity.  However  important  the 
education  of  leaders  from  the  standpoint  of  the  strategy 
of  group  development,  the  larger  number  of  givers  in- 
tend that  their  gifts  shall  minister  to  these  people 
on  the  humble  levels  of  their  need.  This  fact  sets  a 
strict  limit  to  the  proportion  of  its  resources  which 
a  missionary  organization  may  justly  spend  on  the 
higher  or  otherwise  more  expensive  forms  of  edu- 
cation. 

__ 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

The  American  Missionary  Association  has  always  held 

this  principle  sacred.     As  indicated  in  an  earlier  chapter, 

>-,    J    ^.  it  has  graduated  into  independence  some  of 

Graduating  ^  ...  .        , 

Missionary  the  largest  of  negro  institutions  previously 

Colleges  into  under  its  control.  Berea  College,  incompar- 
epen  ence  ably  the  most  influential  single  mountain  in- 
stitution, was  for  many  years  fostered  by  the  Association, 
which  still  holds  certain  trust  funds  in  its  behalf.  Here 
are  gathered  about  half  as  many  students  as  in  all  the  As- 
sociation's mountain  schools,  but  they  are  educated  at  an 
annual  cost  many  fold  greater.  In  technical  trade-educa- 
tion Berea  can  do  for  the  young  mountaineer  —  as  Tuske- 
gee  and  Hampton  can  do  for  the  young  negro  —  what  no 
school  of  the  Association  can  do.  Its  work  is  abundantly 
worth  all  it  costs,  but  it  would  not  be  a  legitimate  expen- 
diture of  funds  for  the  Association  to  support  at  any 
one  place  in  the  mountains,  a  school  at  Berea's  scale  of 
expense.  For  a  missionary  board  the  diffusion  of  oppor- 
tunity is  the  better  part.  The  continuance  of  this  prin- 
ciple necessitates  the  early  graduation  of  another  group 
of  the  Association's  schools,  both  white  and  colored,  into 
independent  support.  They  are  now  absorbing  more  than 
a  just  proportion  of  resources.  Their  adequate  develop- 
ment is  impossible  out  of  the  current  gifts  of  the  existing 
constituency.  Tliis  the  Association  has  recognized  by  de- 
termining at  its  last  annual  meeting  to  make  the  centennial 
of  Lincoln's  birth  the  occasion  of  a  campaign  for  the 
endowment  of  five  of  the  most  advanced  schools.  In  the 
case  of  Piedmont  College,  both  Mr.  Carnegie  and  Dr. 
Pearsons  have  anticipated  this  plan  with  conditional  pledges, 
as  has  the  Association  itself  by  a  special  endowment 
grant. 

Training  for  leadership  in  one  line,  namely,  the  minis- 

[362  1 


THE    PASSING    OF    THE    MOUNTAINEER 

try,  is  the  accepted  task  of  the  Christian  masses.  Neither 
the  state  nor  private  philanthropy  assumes  this  burden. 
^j,  .  .  ^.  The  churches  expect,  and  more  readily  re- 
isters:  Atlanta  spond  to  appeals  in  behalf  of  schools  for  reli- 
Theological  gious  professional  education.  None  has  ever 
beminary  ^^^  ^^  good  a  case  as  Atlanta  Theological 

Seminary.  The  great  city  whose  name  it  bears  was  created 
by  the  convergence  of  railroads  at  the  southern  extremity 
of  the  Appalachians.  All  the  highways  which  touch  the 
mountains  meet  here  before  passing  on  to  every  quarter 
of  the  South.  The  South,  highland,  and  lowland  com- 
bined, has  but  five  independent  Protestant  schools  for 
ministerial  training,  the  most  adequate  of  which  are  all 
located  at  the  extreme  northern  boundary.  Moreover 
the  schism  of  social  classes  has  left  the  churches  of  the 
humbler  people  virtually  without  an  educated  ministry. 
Undoubtedly,  the  relative  provision  for  the  training  of 
negroes  as  ministers  is  greater  than  that  for  whites,  whose 
need  Is  not  less.  There  are  also  some  two  hundred 
little,  scattered,  and  chiefly  rural  churches  bearing  the 
Congregational  name,  whose  ministers  must  be  educated 
in  the  South,  If  at  aU.  They  are  come-outers  from  un- 
progressive  Southern  sects,  and  for  social  prestige  and 
financial  ability  by  no  means  constitute  a  denominational 
asset.  To  furnish  these  with  effective  spiritual  leader- 
ship Is  a  task  offering  httle  sectarian,  but  great  patriotic 
and  Christian  satisfaction.  It  touches  the  belated  white 
man  of  the  Southern  lowlands,  who  shares  the  crisis  of  the 
sifting  of  the  South  as  well  as  the  mountaineer.  Its  ac- 
ceptance at  the  beginning  only  complicates  the  race  situ- 
ation 'by  Introducing  the-  problem  of  the  ecclesiastical 
relations  of  white  and  negro  churches.  Before  it  Is  com- 
pleted it  will  surely  contribute  to  the  Christian  solution 

[363] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

of  that  problem  at  the  point  where  the  clash  of  races  is 
now  most  violent. 

Externally,  scarcely  any  school  is  less  impressive  than 
the  Seminary.  There  is  merely  a  none-too-modern  brick 
Guidincthe  dwelling-house,  surrounded  by  the  ruins  of 
Pilgrims  in  once  pretentious   grounds,   on   a  wind-swept 

their  Crisis  ^^^  overlooking  Atlanta.  The  students, 
many  of  them  ordained  men  with  families,  constitute  an 
interesting  and  earnest  group.  A  virile  and  aggressive 
president  carries  as  a  personal  burden  the  annual  solici- 
tation of  nearly  half  the  expenses  of  the  institution,  and 
pleads  in  faith  for  a  modest  set  of  buildings  which  shall  de- 
cently house  the  school.^  These  are  necessary  to  perpetu- 
ate present  achievement  and  to  provide  for  a  spiritually 
magnificent  future.  A  little  group  of  professors,  whose 
names  have  been  honorable  for  eloquence,  teaching  power 
and  missionary  service,  are  giving  their  declining  years  to 
this  splendid,  underpaid  ministry.  The  active  pastors  of 
Atlanta  share  their  time  gratuitously  with  the  institution. 
It  has  as  many  students  as  three  Northei-n  Congrega- 
tional seminaries.  The  earnestness  and  practical  atmos- 
phere of  its  classroom  is  in  happy  contrast  with  the 
dry-as-dust  spirit  and  scholastic  coldness  of  too  many  insti- 
tutions, similar  in  name  but  not  in  practise.  In  a  hundred 
years  we  shall  garnish  the  sepulchres  of  these  prophets ; 
we  are  starving  them  now.  Yet  they  are  meeting  a  crisis 
where  the  mountain  paths  converge  and  where  the  feet 
of  new  pilgrims  are  passing  into  the  broader  ways  and 
sterner  conflicts  of  a  new  South,  and  of  the  nation  of 
which  it  is  a  part. 

In  a  region  undergoing  such  radical  transition  as  are 

'  Since  the  writing  of  the  text,  funds  have  been  secured  for  a  school 
building  and  a  president's  home. 

[364] 


THE    PASSING    OF    THE    MOUNTAINEER 

the  mountains,  corresponding  radical  readjustments  of 
missionary  agencies  are  frequently  necessary.  Thus  at 
R  d"  I  T  -  Williamsburg,  Kentucky,  was  located  one  of 
sitions  aud  the  largest  and  oldest  of  missionary  schools, 

Radical  Re-  Highland  College.  The  Northern  preacher 
long  preceded  the  railroad  and  reached  the 
settlement  before  it  ever  had  a  church  building  of  its  own. 
Once  a  frame  had  been  raised,  and  pulled  doWn  again 
on  a  drunken  wager  of  ox-team  against  ox-team.  For 
a  quarter  of  a  century  a  school  was  supported,  wliich 
educated  some  of  the  brainiest  of  mountain  politicians, 
which  served  as  a  center  for  educational  and  evangel- 
istic activity,  and  set  the  standards  of  the  higher  life 
for  the  entire  region.  Meanwhile  the  race  issue  had 
arisen.  Berea  had  maintained  for  years  the  coeducation 
of  negroes  and  wliites,  and  the  Association's  fidelity  at 
Williamsburg  to  the  same  pohcy  was  the  occasion  of  the 
establishment  of  a  sectarian  school.  The  deeper  cause 
was  the  aroused  spirit  of  progress  in  the  mountaineers 
themselves.  After  the  erection  of  the  mission  church  in 
a  neighboring  settlement,  they  took  hoes  and  scraped  the 
primeval  filth  from  the  floor  of  the  native  meeting-house. 
At  Williamsburg,  emulation  took  the  form  of  educational 
rivalry.  With  new  ambitions  came  ability  to  satisfy  them. 
The  mountains  at  length  produced  the  native  millionaire. 

Through  shrewd  dealing  in  coal  lands  he  made  his 
The  Coming  fortune.  He  was  willing  to  buy  out  the  mis- 
of  the  Native  sion  school  at  a  price  coveiing  the  entire 
Milhonaire:  property  investment  of  twenty-five  years, 
of  the  Old  "  -^^^  ^^^^  represented  two-thirds  of  the  tribu- 
Men  of  the  tary  population.      Their   school  had  caught 

Mountains  ^]-^q  contagion  not  only  of  culture,  but  some- 

what of  liberality.     Highland  College  was  sold.     It  had 

[  oGo  ] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

done  its  essential  work  and  the  investment  was  more 
needed  elsewhere.  The  community  had  not  reached  the 
standard  of  the  more  favored  regions  either  in  wealth  or 
culture,  but  it  was  on  the  way.  Its  distinctive  traits  of 
a  quarter  of  a  century  ago  no  longer  dominated  it,  and 
remained  only  as  the  badge  of  the  submerged  classes. 
As  a  social  group  its  people  had  emerged  and  developed 
the  institutions  necessary  to  conserve  their  gains.  The 
cooperation  of  missionary  and  millionaire  had  hastened 
the  passing  of  the  mountaineer.  The  future,  material  and 
spiritual,  was  safe  in  the  hands  of  their  joint  product,  the 
normally  equipped  American.  Thus,  locality  by  locality, 
the  mountains  cease  to  present  a  national  problem,  need- 
ing the  ministries  of  special  nationalizing  agencies.  What 
was  merely  temporary  backwardness  in  their  peculiar  Ufe 
is  left  behind ;  the  rest,  bad  and  good,  merges  with  the 
common  life  of  the  nation. 

"I  pass  but  cannot  die." 

So  somehow  within  the  deed  and  heart  of  America  will 
abide  the  contribution  of  the  Southern  highlander. 


[366] 


XII.    DOES    THE    PURPOSE    OF    GOD 
THWART   THE   SPIRIT   OF   CHRIST? 

I.    THE  MORAL  SIFTING  OF  THE  NATION  ON  THE 
RACE  ISSUE 

CENTURY  after  century  has  marched  by  since  that 
great  movement  began  which  has  monopohzed  nine- 
tenths  of  recorded  history  and  which  we  call  the 
progress  of  Western  civilization ;  but  never  has  Aryan 
supremacy  been  challenged  until  within  this  decade.     At- 

T^T      .J  tila's  Huns  could  not  permanently  threaten 

New  Ardor  .  ^  -' 

and  Stubborn-     the  racial  balance  of  power ;    an   awakened 
nessof  Race-      Orient  does.     Our  breed  of  men  has  met  this 
^  ^  challenge  with  an  ardor  and  stubbornness  of 

race  feeling"  new  to  Christendom.     This  feeling  creates  a 
crisis  for  Christianity  itself. 

Once  the  heathen  was  a  perishing  soul,  hard  to  get  at  — 
and  we  loved  him.  Later  he  became  a  consuming  body, 
part  of  a  world-market,  worshiping  idols  made  in  Con- 
necticut —  and  we  tolerated  him.  Finally  he  became  a 
participating  fellow  in  common  civilization,  a  neighbor  — 
and  we  hated  him.  Recently  he  has  taken  an  active  hand 
in  affairs  —  and  we  propose  to  put  him  out.  Everywhere 
it  is  the  same  —  in  Australia,  South  Africa,  Canada,  the 
United  States ;  all  the  seats  of  Anglo-Saxon  Empire  raise 
the  cry,  Exclusion !  Deportation !  Race  prejudice,  a  natu- 
ral self-protective  instinct,  has  roused  and  shaken  itself. 
This  compels  heart  searching  in  all  our  traditional  Chris- 
tian activities,  and  puts  the  missionary  impulse  itself  on 
trial. 

[367] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

Let  us  clearly  understand  why.  Race-feeling  to-day 
rises  in  the  face  of  a  tremendous  fact,  a  new  world-unity. 
It  is  Forced  World-politics,  world-science,  world-commerce 
to  Extremes  and  industry  have  made  this  earth  an  open- 
by  Revul^^on  ^qqj.^^  commonwealth  of  mankind.  It  also 
rrom  the  Social  .  .  i     ,         xt-  i  • 

Applications        confronts  a  new  religious  ideal.     Within  this 

of  Christianity  new  world  men  have  seen  the  social  vision  of 
the  gospel  which  compels  them  to  look  beyond  individual 
salvation  to  the  actual  and  active  contacts  of  redeemed 
men  in  the  kingdom  of  God.  The  impact  of  these  two 
facts  immediately  forces  race-feehng  of  a  naive,  instinc- 
tive character  and  compels  it  to  forge  weapons.  Slave- 
holder theology  believed  in  heaven  for  human  chattels ; 
mercantile  philanthropy  thanked  God  for  souls  new-born 
in  India ;  the  old  missionary  evangelism  converted  a 
heathen  and  left  the  institutions  of  Turkey  or  China  to 
stand  the  moral  shock  and  take  the  social  consequences ; 
but  convert  a  heathen  at  home,  and  American  institutions 
have  to  stand  the  moral  shock  and  take  the  social  con- 
sequences. What  these  consequences  are,  race-feeling 
clearly  discloses.  One  cannot  evangelize  a  man  and  then 
shut  the  door  of  human  fellowship  in  his  face.  Within 
twenty-five  years,  I  venture,  no  American  with  a  shred 
of  honesty  will  dare  engage  in  foreign  missions  unless 
race-feeling  in  America  is  conquered.  These  comparatively 
insignificant  race-contacts  will  inevitably  follow  the  spirit 
and  fashion  of  the  massive,  permanent,  and  significant  con- 
The  Pickets  tacts  within  the  national  life.  Christianity 
will  Cease  to  must  face  the  social  consequences  of  asking 
Fraternize  ^^^  j^^^  ^^^  f^^^-i      ^f  q^^       rj.^^  ^^^^  ^^^. 

when  the  .  .  .  ''  i       •        i         .  "  i 

Armies  Begin      sionary  impulse  is  at  stake  in  the  struggle 

to  Fight  with  ascendant  race-feeling;    for  missions  in 

the   modern   world  must  mean  the   participation   of  men 

[368] 


THE    PURPOSE    OF    GOD 


in  common  civilization.  Whether  we  shall  evangelize  at 
all  is  to  be  determined  here  —  under  the  stars  and  stripes. 
A  momentous  phase  of  the  present  race  issue  in  the 
United  States  is  the  growing  consciousness  that  it  is  con- 
Critical  Signifi-  tinuous  with  the  world-struggle  of  classes 
cance  of  and  races  and  that  its  outcome  is  profoundly 

.■  fR  _  significant  for  all  mankind.  Race  adjust- 
Issue  for  all  ment  is  a  universal  problem  of  civilization. 
Mankind  The  echoes  of  this  fact  already  are  heard  in 

our  controversial  literature.  Our  negro  press  took  on  a 
tone  of  triumph  at  the  victory  of  Japan  over  Russia  as 
that  of  a  colored  over  a  white  race.  The  later  apologies 
for  the  white  South's  race-policy  deliberately  argues  from 
Anglo-Saxon  practise  at  the  antipodes.  Mr.  Ray  Stan- 
nard  Baker  shows  ^  that  in  the  large  the  negro's  unrest 
is  of  a  piece  with  the  under-man's  struggle  all  over  the 
world.  America  is  naturally  the  central  theater  of  this 
struggle ;  for  here  we  have  theoretically  taken  the  most 
ideal  ground  upon  race  relations.  The  world  is  concerned 
in  our  endeavor  to  make  good  our  theories.  Succeeding 
or  failing,  we  are  molding  the  destinies  of  mankind. 

II.    MORAL  STRUGGLE  COMPLICATED  BY 
INTELLECTUAL  DIFFICULTIES 

The  moral  struggle  in  which  we  are  thus  involved  is 
Assumed  Au-  peculiarly  complicated  to-day  by  intellectual 
thority  of  difficulties.      The  most  critical  of  them  is  a 

1  *^H^v'  d  \  peculiar  authority  which  race-feeling  gets 
Concerning  from  the  belief  that  it  is  justified  by  science. 
Races  Yesterday  Scripture  was  appealed  to  in  its 

favor;    to-day,  Sociology.     For  the  myth  of  divine  origin 


"  Following  the  Color-Line,"  p.  269. 
[  369  ] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

of  favored  stocks  we  have  substituted  the  doctrine  of 
chosen  people  by  natural  selection.  The  past,  it  is  taught, 
revealed  the  sifting  of  human  races ;  the  present  sees  the 
crowning  of  the  fit  to  rule ;  the  future  must  witness  the 
elimination  of  the  unfit  who  else  will  inevitably  beguile 
and  entangle  the  chosen  races  to  their  doom.  As  a  coun- 
sel of  practical  duty  this  doctrine  takes  two  forms:  first, 
it  is  a  doctrine  of  the  active  suppression  of  the  unfit  — 
applied  Darwinism,  the  gospel  of  racial  aggression,  which 
is  the  name  of  a  better  humanity,  would  crowd  the  nature 
peoples  from  the  earth;  second,  it  is  a  doctrine  of  the 
passive  suppression  of  the  unfit  —  race  segregation,  which 
is  to  be  vigorously  enforced  by  social  policy  until  nature 
eliminates  the  unfit  by  her  slow,  inexorable  processes.^ 

In  its  application  to  races  this  doctrine  of  the  survival 
of  the  fittest  gets  the  unfair  backing  of  many  instinctive 
Stated  in  its  ^^^  carefully  cherished  prejudices.  It  can 
Widest  Bear-  only  be  j  udged  fairly  in  its  broadest  and 
^^^  most   general  application  not   to   races  but 

within  races.  Logically  it  ought  to  demand  the  elimina- 
tion of  our  parents  when  they  are  old,  of  our  children 
while  they  are  weak,  and  of  ourselves  when  we  are  sick. 
It  saves,  at  best,  not  all  Aryans,  or  Anglo-Saxons,  but 
only  long-headed  blondes.  President  Roosevelt  ought  to 
have  been  slaughtered,  and  Sir  Walter  Scott  before  him, 
because  of  their  puny  youth.  Actually  the  issue  is  often 
theoretically  raised  in  most  serious  and  authoritative  sci- 
entific discussions  of  heredity  as  related  to  the  pauper, 
the  consumptive,  or  the  alcoholic.  In  a  savage  society 
these  would  soon  succumb.  What  is  the  effect  on  the 
future  health  and  strength  of  the  race  of  their  preserva- 

*  Finot,  Race  Prejudice,  Pt.  I,  ch.  i,  "The  Gospel  of  Inequality  and  its 
Prophets,"  §§  5,  6. 

[370] 


THE    PURPOSE    OF    GOD 


tion  by  the  humane  ministries  of  modern  society  —  char- 
ity, the  hospital,  moral  reform?  By  example  and  by 
heredity  will  they  not  perpetuate  their  weaknesses  to  the 
deterioration  of  the  race?  Is  it  not  better  that  present 
victims  be  sacrificed  than  that  the  unborn  should  suffer? 

Logically  this  is  a  serious  dilemma;  practically  it  in- 
volves profound  problems.  It  can  only  be  met  by  an 
adequate  scientific  answer,  which  later  we  shall  attempt 
to  suggest.  Yet  when  it  touches  those  near-at-hand  classes 
who  are  protected  by  the  humane  sentiment,  the  average 
man  dismisses  it  with  the  crass  comment  of  his  morning 
paper,  "  a  scientist  talks  nonsense."  ^  We  take  this  doc- 
trine complacently,  however,  when  applied  to  the  man  of 
other  races  than  ours.  Half  of  us  are  quite  wilhng  to 
give  him  a  push  over  the  precipice  (to  use  Nietzsche's 
kindly  metaphor)  ;  most  of  the  other  half  are  easily  re- 
signed to  leaving  him  outside  the  pale  of  civilized  asso- 
ciations till  he  vanishes  before  our  expanding  empire. 

There  is  still  a  further  step;    the  missionary  impulse 

is   formally  arraigned  by  the  dogma  of  race  inferiority 

™,    ,,.   .  on    the    authority    of    science.      Pro-Arvan 

1  he  JMission-  1 

ary  Impulse        champions    take   a    vein    of   high    solemnity. 

Formally  "  You  can't  afford  to  be  kind  to  the  lower 

Arraigned  ^^^^^ .    j^  j^  wicked."     The  spirit  of  Christ 

is  definitely  rebuked  when  it  would  exercise  its  nature 
toward  the  backward  folk.  Scientific  qualms  turn  pious. 
We  are  warned  "  especially  against  the  emotions  of  sym- 
pathy, of  pity  for  the  unfortunate  race,  the  '  man  of 
yesterday,'  whom  the  unfeeling  processes  of  nature  de- 
mand  in    sacrifice   upon   the    altar   of   the   Evolution   of 

'  See  editorial  in  New  York  Times  on  Prof.  Wm.  Ridgeway's  address 
before  the  Anthropological  Section  of  the  British  Association,  September  7, 
1908. 


[371] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

Humanity."  The  issue  is  frankly  put :  "  May  not  the 
strong  Caucasian  lend  a  helping  hand  to  his  weaker  Afri- 
can brother,  lift  him  up,  and  the  two  walk  along  hand  in 
hand  through  the  centuries?  This  is  a  very  idyllic  pic- 
ture —  but  a  moment's  reflection  must  show  how  inade- 
quate and  unreal  this  dew  of  Hermon."  ^  "  All  flesh  is 
not  the  same  flesh ;  star  differeth  from  star  in  glory  " ; 
therefore  concerning  the  races  we  are  solemnly  adjured, 
"  What  God  hath  put  asunder,  let  not  man  join  together." 

In  like  vein  writes  a  Southern  reviewer  of  "  The  Negro 
in  the  South  "  (by  Dr.  W.  E.  B.  Du  Bois  and  Booker  T. 
Washington).  He  finds  the  keynote  to  Dr.  Du  Bois'  con- 
tribution in  the  following  quotation :  "  Who  can  doubt 
that  if  Christ  came  to  Georgia  to-day  one  of  His  first 
deeds  would  be  to  sit  down  and  take  supper  with  black 
men,  and  who  can  doubt  the  outcome  if  He  did.^"  "  The 
reviewer's  comment  is :  "  Upon  the  short-sightedly  senti- 
mental ideal  or  Christian  basis  it  may  be  admitted  that 
Professor  Bu  Bois  has  the  best  of  the  argument.  But," 
he  goes  on  to  remind  us,  "  the  laws  of  nature  and  not 
the  imperfect  and  changing  interpretations  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  any  ethical  system,  Christian  or  other,  determine 
the  fates  of  men  and  of  races  in  bulk."  He  concludes: 
"  As  the  nation  could  not  exist  permanently  half  slave 
and  half  free,  so  it  cannot  exist  permanently  seven-eighths 
white  and  one-eighth  black.  White  or  black  must  perish 
in  the  end.  Which  is  the  most  likely  to  perish.'^  "  -  The 
negro,  it  appears.  His  elimination  is  declared  to  be  "  an 
inevitable,  far-off  divine  event,"  against  which  it  is  both 
foolish  and  wicked  to  strive. 

The  axe  is  thus  laid  at  the  root  of  the  tree  of  Christian 

>  Smith,  "  The  Color-Line,"  pp.  x,  188. 
2  "H.  I.  B."  in  New  York  Times. 
-_ 


THE    PURPOSE    OF    GOD 


missions  and  its  edge  is  this :  Does  the  purpose  of  God 
thwart  the  spirit  of  Christ?  May  we  evangehze  and  edu- 
The  Axe  at  cate,  or  does  God  forbid?  When  Jesus  says, 
the  Root  of  "  Make  learners  of  all  nations,"  does  God 
the  Iree  g^^^^   "No,    some   haven't   brains   enough"? 

When  the  voice  sounds,  "  Feed  my  sheep,"  must  we  reply, 
"  Yea,  Lord,  thou  knowest  that  we  love  thee,  but  what 
you  take  for  sheep  are  only  goats  "? 

This  is  no  academic  question.  So  subtle  are  the  infec- 
tions of  race-feeling  that  thousands  of  men  of  Christian 
instinct  (whether  they  have  articulated  the  fear  or  not) 
are  not  sure  whether,  after  all,  God  himself  is  not  against 
missionary  endeavor  for  the  most  backward  races ;  whether 
the  full  Christian  hope,  especially  for  the  negro,  is  not 
mistaken ;  whether  the  participation  of  his  race  with  ours, 
in  the  Christian  civilization  of  America,  is  not  impossible, 
because  of  natural  racial  inequality  which  God  intended. 

III.    EXAMINATION  OF  THE  ALLEGED  VERDICT  OF 

SCIENCE 

The  remedy  for  this  condition  is  chiefly  moral.  As  a 
challenge  to  the  Christian  spirit  it  must  primarily  be  met 
by  the  Christian  spirit.  Concerning  instinc- 
tive  race  antipathy  we  have  nothing  to  say; 
the  passion  of  brotherhood  must  conquer  it.  But  in  so 
far  as  the  difficulty  is  intellectual,  it  admits  of  intellectual 
treatment.  The  alleged  findings  of  science  may  be  met 
on  their  own  ground.  These  Philistines  also  are  men, 
and  as  such  we  may  fight  them. 

Race  antipathy  instinctively  seizes  upon  distasteful 
physical  peculiarities  in  other  human  varieties  as  evidences 
of  their  inferiority.      Color  is  the  most  outstanding  ex- 

[373  1 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

ample.  To  say  authoritatively  what  significance  color 
may  have,  if  any,  is  the  business  of  anthropology ;  and 
to  this  science  we  first  appeal. 

First,  then,  the  most  violent  pro-Ayran  anthropology 
is  infinitely  milder  than  the  popular  prejudice  it  is  al- 
leged to  justify.  That  prejudice  sees  the  lowest  white 
man  on  the  throne  and  the  highest  colored  man  licking  the 
dust  under  his  footstool.  A  supposed  justification  of  it 
is  found  in  the  conception  that  there  are  feral  races, 
physically  intermediate  between  true  man  and  brute. 
This  view  has  not  the  slightest  scientific  standing.  The 
contrary  facts  are  that  physically  each  race  approaches 
the  brute  at  some  points,  and  departs  at  other  points, 
but  no  race  is  feral  at  all  points,  or  at  so  many  more 
than  others  that  it  is  thus  distinguished.  If  in  the 
exchange  of  interracial  amenities,  for  example,  one  is 
moved  to  exclaim,  "  You  great  black  brute !  "  the  retort 
courteous  might  be,  "  You  great  hairy  brute !  "  If  one 
says,  "  Your  long  arms  remind  me  of  an  ape,"  the  scien- 
tific reply  would  be,  "  Your  short  legs  remind  me  of  the 
same  beast."  In  brief,  the  white  race  has  simian  charac- 
teristics which  the  black  race  lacks,  and  vice  versa.  But 
the  utmost  that  any  anthropology  claims  is  a  slight  average 
superiority  in  the  white  race.  In  height,  bulk,  strength, 
brain  weight,  skull  capacity,  development  of  forebrain, 
fecundity,  longevity,  or  any  other  proposed  test,  that  is 
all.  Through  most  of  their  ranges  of  mental  capacity 
the  races  are  overlapping;  most  of  the  individuals  of  a 
given  race  have  individuals  to  match  them  in  any  other. 
This  means,  to  take  the  nearest  case,  that  if  one  should 
line  up  all  the  American  whites  and  grade  them  on  the 
scale  of  100,  he  would  probably  find  few  blacks  to  match 
those  above  90,  more  to  match  those  from  80  to  90,  more 

[3741 


THE    PURPOSE    OF    GOD 


still  as  he  went  down  the  scale,  the  middle  ranges  being 
proportionately  equal.  No  negro  can  possibly  be  lower 
than  some  white  men.  The  bottom  of  hell  is  level.  No 
one  can  say  dogmatically  that  there  are  not  ten  million 
American  whites  who  could  be  married  to  the  ten  million 
American  negroes  without  biological  injury  to  posterity. 
Of  course  the  social  injury  would  be  immeasurable. 

But  overlapping  races  can  participate  in  a  common 
civilization. 

Again  some  one  will  say  —  call  his  name  Charles  Francis 
Adams  — "  If  the  backward  people  have  high  natural 
High  Capacity  capacity  why  don't  they  show  it  ?  Measure 
of  Backward  the  unutterable  distance  between  London  and 
Peoples  Khartoum !    If  negroes  have  brains  why  don't 

they  use  them?  "  The  answer  is,  They  do.  The  back- 
ward peoples  positively  manifest  a  high  order  of  mental 
capacity. 

We  are  not  brainier  than  our  fathers ;  no  one  argues 
that  we  are  a  biological  advance  on  the  Teutonic  bar- 
barians. They  showed  genius  in  the  German  forest  as 
the  savage  in  the  African  jungle.  How?  By  not  pronely 
accepting  the  world  as  they  found  it;  by  actively  at- 
tacking and  transforming  their  environments.  As  evi- 
dences of  sheer  ability  to  conquer  by  intelligence,  no  sub- 
sequent steps  in  civilization  can  remotely  compare  with 
the  first.  Edison  is  a  poor  second  to  Prometheus  and 
Luther  Burbank  to  the  squaw  who  tamed  the  first  dog. 

Still  further,  their  method  of  mental  procedure  is  ex- 
actly that  which  we  glorify  by  the  high  sounding  titles 
Superior  °^  abstract  reasoning  and  scientific  method. 

Intellectual  Modem  logic  is  teaching  us  that  every  fruit- 
Processes  f^i  [^Qg^^  jg  simply  a  plan  of  action,  the  valid- 
ity of  which  we  discover  by  trying  it.     We  have  absolutely 

_- 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

no  other  resource,  no  esoteric  Aryan  guaranty  of  truth. 
Did  the  Hawaiians  plant  Captain  Cook's  iron  nails  think- 
ing that  they  would  grow?  Absurd?  Then  yesterday's 
physical  science  was  equally  absurd  in  its  static  concep- 
tion of  matter.  That  iron  would  grow,  and  that  matter 
was  made  up  of  atoms,  were  both  perfectly  worthy  hy- 
potheses, but  neither  worked.  Consequently  the  savant 
ceased  to  treat  matter  atomically ;  the  savage  ceased  to 
plant  nails.  Each  used  the  same  method,  one  profession- 
ally, the  other  popularly.  One  had  more  accumulated 
knowledge,  but  he  was  not  wiser  than  the  other;  particu- 
larly he  did  not  show  some  exalted  mental  faculty  which 
the  other  lacked. 

Moreover,  the  most  significant  wisdom  of  all  is  that 
which  counsels  concerning  human  life.  This  is  the  core 
Practical  of  all  philosophies.      The  Aryan  masses  do 

Philosophy  not   know   Plato,   but   they   have   a    popular 

philosophy  infinitely  more  revealing  of  the  race  mind. 
But  so  has  the  West  African.  "  Full-belly  child  says  to 
hungry-belly  child,  '  Keep  good  cheer.'  "  We  say,  "  It 's 
easy  to  bear  others'  misfortunes."  Is  our  version  better? 
"  I  'm  not  so  angry  at  the  man  who  killed  me  as  at  the 
man  who  hurled  me  on  the  ground  afterward."  Is  "  add- 
ing insult  to  injury  "  apter?  "  Quick  marrying  a  woman 
means  quick  unmarrying  a  woman."  What  more  can  one 
ask  as  a  passport  to  our  Christian  civilization?  In  brief, 
the  practical  philosophy  of  life  is  for  savage  and  civilized 
essentially  similar. 

Or  turn  to  the  supreme  moral  quality,  self-control.  Are 
the  nature-peoples  popularly  characterized  as  impulsive. 
Capacity  for  subject  to  uncontrollable  instinct  and  chance 
Self-Control  passions?  Yet  no  life  is  so  bound  as  theirs 
with  ceremonialism,   and  ceremonialism  means  the  subor- 

[376] 


THE    PURPOSE    OF    GOD 


dination  of  impulses.  The  law  of  tabu  hedges  conduct  at 
every  turn.  It  says  "  No  "  to  the  most  imperious  impulses 
and  is  obeyed.  Would  the  American  starve  rather  than 
eat  the  sacred  seal  sporting  before  his  hut.^^  The  Eskimo 
will.  Would  he  take  the  holy  serpent's  fang  in  his  breast 
rather  than  kill  it  ?  The  West  African  will.  Are  our  cities 
safe  from  civic  looters  because  an  unseen  power  guards 
them.'*  Tlie  Hottentots'  possessions  are  in  the  jungle. 
The  natural  man  is  probably  challenged  and  restrained 
by  law  at  more  points  —  not  the  same  points,  to  be  sure 
—  under  heathenism  than  under  Christianity.  Moral 
control  is  not  a  whit  less  real,  inclusive,  or  effectual. 

In  significant  achievement,  then,  as  well  as  in  natural 
capacity,  the  races  are  overlapping.  All  of  this  does 
No  Race  ^^^    prove    equality.      We    are    not    talking 

Unfit  for  about   equality,   but   about   the   inclusion    of 

Civilization  |^j^g  backward  races  in  a  common  civilization. 
Can  the  negro  be  fitted  for  American  citizenship.'*  So  far 
as  anthropology  testifies  of  his  natural  capacity.  Yes. 
No  race  can  be  saved  wholesale ;  nor  need  any  race  be 
lost  wholesale.  All  races,  biologically  speaking,  are  fit 
to  survive  and  participate  in  and  contribute  to  human 
society. 

But  the  argument  must  be  pushed  still  further;  for 
however  favorable  the  verdict  of  anthropology  concern- 
.  ing  the  backward  races,  and  however  con- 
clusive against  doctrines  of  their  necessary 
elimination,  either  by  the  active  or  by  the  passive  method, 
it  is  not  immediately  applicable  to  social  perplexities. 
We  asked  whether  the  races  could  participate  in  a  common 
civilization  and  were  assured  that  all  were  capable  and 
fit  to  survive.  That  is  not  an  answer  to  our  question. 
For  such  an  answer  we  must  go  to  Sociology  —  the  sci- 

[377] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

ence  of  human  association.  Specifically,  our  question  is 
this:  Granting  corresponding  natural  capacities  and  gen- 
eral mental  endowments,  may  not  the  difference  in  detail 
in  the  mental  tendencies  of  the  races  be  so  fixed  as  to 
make  their  inclusion  in  common  interest  and  activities 
forever  impossible?  We  know  of  brilliant  individuals  who 
could  by  no  means  hve  together.  May  not  this  be  the 
case  also  of  capable  races?  We  answer,  They  may  learn 
to  live  together.  There  are  no  specific  differences  of  race 
mind  which  are  beyond  the  control  of  education. 

The  organic  basis  of  race  traits  can  only  be  interpreted 
in  terms  of  instinct.  There  are  inborn  tendencies  which 
M  t  I  Tr  "L  ™^^k^  ^^6  white  act  in  a  different  manner 
of  Race  from  that  in  which  the  black  would  act  in  the 

not  beyond  presence  of  the  same  stimulus.  But  what  of 
Education  -^p     gij^ij^r  and  not  smaller  tendencies  exist 

to  make  one  white  man  act  differently  from  another.  Be- 
sides, there  is  nothing  fixed  or  invincible  about  these  dif- 
ferences. Psychology  knows  nothing  of  relentless  in- 
stincts. Every  one  has  lost  dozens  of  them.  Thus  it  is 
no  excuse  for  race  antipathy  to  call  it  "  instinctive." 
Unchastity  is  equally  instinctive.  No  specific  race-trait  is 
half  so  deep-seated  as  the  common  and  elemental  impulses 
which  the  moral  life  undertakes  to  control.  Of  those  which 
intrude  into  the  moral  realm  only  two  —  the  instincts 
of  self-preservation  and  of  the  propagation  of  the  kind 
—  are  especially  unyielding.  All  the  rest  may  be  molded, 
suppressed,  or  recharged.  Most  of  them,  unless  fixed 
and  reenforced  by  habit,  die  of  themselves.  And  among 
the  most  fleeting  of  them,  the  feeblest  and  latest  bom,  are 
the  instinctive  race-differences. 

The  proof  of  such  actual  modification  and  the  assimi- 
lation  of   one  mental  type   to   another   is   everywhere   at 

[378] 


THE    PURPOSE    OF    GOD 


hand.  I  will  risk  an  illustration  from  our  negro  Congre- 
gational brethren.  I  sometimes  go  to  their  church  con- 
ferences and  find  a  gravity  of  manner,  a  sobriety  of  ex- 
pression, a  restraint  of  religious  utterances  which  I  think 
overdoes  the  matter.  They  have,  in  short,  the  general 
denominational  lack  of  rehgious  spontaneity. 

Now,  does  any  one  believe  that  this  result  is  due  to  a 
superhuman  self-control  whereby  each  colored  brother 
painfully  suppresses  his  inner  tendency  to  explosive  Halle- 
lujahs.? This  is  to  attribute  to  him  a  grip  on  himself 
which  we  have  not.  Is  it  not  rather  clear  that  the  ten- 
dency itself  has  suffered  change;  that  liveliness  of  emo- 
tion, a  proverbial  negro  trait,  has  been  radically  modi- 
fied? In  this  particular  our  brother  has  ceased  to  be  a 
negro  and  has  become  a  mere  Congregationalist.  It  has 
been  a  change  for  the  worse,  too.  Many  negro  traits 
may  he^  hut  ought  not  to  be,  obliterated  by  education,  being 
of  positive  and  sometimes  of  unique  value  to  the  world. 

But  still  the  objector  has  a  parting  shot.  "  If  race 
traits  have  no  deeper  organic  roots  than  you  say,  why 
.       .p  are  they  actually  so  persistent,  so  stubborn.'' " 

petuation  by  Again  the  answer  is  easy  though  the  appli- 
Social  cation  is  hard.     Race  characters  persist  be- 

eredi  y  cause   individuals    coming   into   life,    one   by 

one,  with  perfectly  plastic  racial  instincts,  have  these  in- 
stincts fixed,  one  by  one,  in  a  similarity  of  habit,  under 
the  action  of  a  common  mental  and  social  environment. 
The  negro  infant  develops  a  negro  mind  because  he  grows 
up  within  a  race  tradition.  He  has  a  negro  mother,  a 
negro  home,  a  negro  community,  a  negro  place  in  so- 
ciety. These  give  certainty  and  permanency  to  the  faint 
organic  racial  tendencies  which  were  othen^ase  lost.  The 
technical  name  for  this  process  is  "  social  heredity,"  the 

[  379  ] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

newly  recognized  significance  of  which  is  effectively  stated 
by  Prof.  Simon  N.  Patten: 

The  striking  aspect  of  the  recent  development  of 
thought  is  the  changing  concept  concerning  the  part 
heredity  plays  in  life.  Men  have  been  trained  from 
the  earliest  times  to  attach  great  importance  to  the 
influence  of  blood  descent  upon  racial  and  individual 
character.  Some  families  and  peoples  are  said  to 
be  inherently  superior  to  others,  because  they  have 
possessed,  generation  after  generation,  well-marked 
qualities  which  others  did  not  have.  The  differences 
between  them  were  readily  explained  by  heredity,  so 
readily,  in  fact,  that  more  influence  was  soon  given  to 
ancestry  than  to  the  environment  into  which  a  man 
was  born.  This  unequal  division  of  power  seems  to 
be  destroyed  by  recent  discoveries  in  biology,  which 
are  estabhsliing  a  new  equilibrium  between  natural 
or  inherited  qualities  and  those  acquired  after  birth. 
Many  qualities  are  inherited,  but  the  number  is  smaller 
than  it  was  thought  to  be,  and  many  of  them  may 
be  readily  suppressed  by  the  action  of  the  environ- 
ment in  which  men  live,  so  that  they  do  not  show 
themselves  for  long  periods  in  a  particular  family 
or  a  given  race.  This  curtailment  of  the  force  of 
physical  heredity  gives  more  power  to  the  acquired 
qualities  handed  on  from  generation  to  generation 
as  a  social  tradition.  A  physical  inheritance,  simpler 
than  we  thought,  is  ours  at  birth;  but  there  is  a 
larger  and  increasingly  important  social  heredity 
which  must  be  constantly  renewed  through  the  con- 
scious efforts  of  parents  and  teachers.^ 

The  conflict  of  the  educator  therefore  is  not  with  phys- 
ical heredity,  but  with  that  part   of  the  social  heredity 

'  "  New  Basis  of  Civilization,"  pp.  204,  205. 

[380] 


THE    PURPOSE    OF    GOD 


of  his  pupils  which  he  cannot  control.     A  classic  example 

is  the  acknowledged  inability  of  the  schools  to  teach  the 

„    ^    ,  masses   the   mother-tongue.      The   trouble   is 

Control  ,       ,    ,  ,  1     I  •      1  i  J.- 

throuo-h,  and       not  that  babes  are  bom  predestmed  to  erratic 

of,  Social  spelling  and  grammar,  but  that  homes   and 

Heredity  streets    are    also    educators,    and    have    the 

first  and  longest  chance  at  the  child.  Now,  no  remoter 
guiding  or  reforming  agency  can  interpose  early  or  often 
enough  between  the  mother  and  her  child,  the  intimate 
group  and  its  members,  the  isolated  race  and  its  people. 
Consequently  family,  group,  and  race  traits  are  perpetu- 
ated from  generation  to  generation,  much  as  if  physical 
heredity  were  the  controlling  factor.  But  for  all  that  it 
is  not  the  controlling  factor.  Social  heredity  is;  and 
against  it  the  teacher  and  reformer  may  do  something 
immediately  and  in  the  long  run,  much. 

One  thing  of  vast  import  that  he  may  immediately  do 
is   to  modify  the   beliefs  of  men.      On  the   whole  this   is 

^,  „.,  -  more  significant  even  than  any  ability  to 
The  Role  of  ,  *=    .  ^  _.,.  *     i    t  i?     • 

Chanced  Be-       change  outward  conditions.     A  belier,  m   a 

liefs  in  Social  peculiarly  intimate  sense,  expresses  a  man. 
Heredity  Change  it  and  the  man  is  changed  —  as  in 

the  case  of  the  mulatto.  His  case  is  of  pathetic  and 
thrilling  human  interest.  On  the  misunderstanding  that 
it  was  chiefly  to  be  explained  by  the  potency  of  white 
blood  it  has  been  used  to  rob  the  pure  negro  of  most  of 
his  racial  achievements. 

The  true  explanation  is  essentially  psychological.^  Un- 
doubtedly the  progress  of  the  American  negro  has  been 

»  Contrast  with  this  the  biological  explanations  of  Stone,  Studies  in  the 
American  Race  Problem,  ch.  ix,  "The  Mulatto  Factor."  In  general  har- 
mony with  the  position  of  this  book,  see  Ross,  "  Foundations  of  Sociology," 
pp.  320,  321.  ^^^ 


381] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

disproportionately  the  progress  of  a  mulatto  group ;  its 
leadership  disproportionately  mulatto  leadership.  Be- 
Control  cause  the   mulatto   is   biologically    superior? 

through  Social  No ;  because  he  believes  in  the  superiority 
Heredity  ^f  j^g  trickle  of  white  heredity.     Repeatedly 

I  've  heard  from  men  of  low  mentality,  "  You  can't  scare 
me ;  I  've  white  blood  in  me."  Result :  they  are  not 
scared.  Mere  behef.'*  Well,  there  is  nothing  mightier 
in  the  universe.  "  By  faith  the  walls  of  Jericho  fell 
down."  The  latest  word  of  philosophy  is  that  the  nature 
of  a  thing  is  what  it  does.  "  That  is  different  which 
makes  a  difference."  Mentally  the  mulatto  is  not  a  negro, 
not  because  he  is  the  product  of  mixed  blood,  but  because 
he  is  the  product  of  a  mixed  and  modified  race  tradition. 
Any  social  group  which  experiences  common  modifications 
of  an  old  race  tradition  is  a  new  type,  as  worthy  of  sci- 
entific recognition  as  an  "  original  "  race.  To  think  other- 
wise is  a  pure  superstition  of  classification.  "  If  any 
man  is  in  Christ  there  is  a  new  creation."  This  is  a 
rigidly  scientific  statement.  Social  psychology  teaches 
that  men  are  transformed  in  essential  personality  by  the 
renewing  of  their  minds.  There  is  no  biological  fate 
sundering  the  races,  no  Inexorable  processes  of  nature 
thwarting  the  new  faith  in  one's  self  and  one's  brethren 
inspired  by  the  spirit  of  Christ. 

In  so  far  as  hard  and  cramping  tradition  is  not  chal- 
lenged and  broken  through  by  new  and  energizing  beliefs, 

cj  ,    ^.  social  heredity  works  out  human  destiny  as 

belection  ac-  . «  .  i       •     i  i         i 

cording  to  relentlessly  as  if  it  were  true  physical  hered- 

Social  ity,  and  consequently  beyond  human  control. 

ere  i  y  j^^  effective  results  come  to  much  the  same 

thing.      According   to   Its   dictates   men   are    selected   for 

high  or  low  estate.     Custom,  law,  Institutions,  possessions, 

[382] 


THE    PURPOSE    OF    GOD 


and  social  pressure  conspire  to  bring  some  into  life,  heirs 
of  self-confidence  and  traditional  prestige,  controlling  the 
accumulated  wealth  and  the  manifold  machinery  of  civi- 
lization. Others,  by  arbitrary  discrimination  of  birth, 
lack  all  these  advantages  and  go  in  the  mass  as  though 
naturally  predestined  to  a  lower  place.  As  between  races, 
belief  and  wealth  exalt  the  white  as  the  socially  elect,  and 
abase  the  black ;  within  the  white  race,  they  exalt  the  rich 
and  abase  the  poor.  There  is  not  a  vestige  of  scientific 
proof  that  these  contrasts  in  any  wise  register  the  dis- 
tribution of  natural  capacity  by  physical  heredity.  Its 
distribution  is  indeed  unequal  but  it  does  not  at  all  follow 
racial  or  class  lines. 

Vast  and  unmeasured  numbers  of  the  disinherited  are 
simply  normal  human  beings  whose  average  capacities 
Suppressed  are  socially  suppressed;  partly  through 
Classes  under-nourishment  and   other  environmental 

handicaps  which  lower  their  physical  tone,  and  partly 
through  paralyzing  beliefs  in  natural  inferiority  which 
forbid  them  to  hope  for  themselves  and  prevent  society 
from  doing  its  best  in  their  behalf.  The  rich  and  the 
successful  as  a  class  have  not  more  strength  and  capacity 
than  the  average  run  of  natural  men,  nor  the  poor  less ; 
but  social  environments  in  the  latter  case  do  not  allow 
the  effective  expression  of  nature's  gifts,  nor  even  their 
self-discovery.  An  alien  and  pauper  race  included  in  a 
highly  self-appreciative  and  arrogant  civilization  becomes, 
in  the  nature  of  the  case,  a  suppressed  class.  It  shows 
the  typical  traits  of  poverty-men  which,  in  its  case,  espe- 
cially, are  mistakenly  charged  to  physical  heredity. 

Such  a  social  situation  hardens  into  a  caste  system 
whenever  ultimate  sanctions  are  supplied  to  fix  the  results 
of   arbitrary    social    sifting.      Whenever    the    philosophy 

[383] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

and  religion  of  a  dominant  group  unite  to  justify  its 
present  advantage,  and  especially  whenever  a  disinherited 
The  Caste  group   comes   to   accept   its  place  as   in   the 

System  nature  of  things,  a  deadlock  is  reached  which 

is  more  hopeless  than  if  it  were  indeed  the  result  of  physical 
heredity.  For  physical  heredity  admits  of  great,  though 
limited,  possibilities  of  modifying  the  individual  after  he 
is  born ;  but  the  fatalism  of  the  caste  doctrine  makes  all 
endeavor  hopeless.  Such  fatalism  is  the  essential  atti- 
tude of  much  American  thought,  particularly  in  the  South. 
The  Booker  Washington  program  is  declared  to  be  no 
better  than  that  of  the  negro  radicals:  it  simply  will 
prolong  the  agony  a  little;  the  negro  problem  has  no 
solution.  Such  an  attitude  reveals  the  suppressive  weight 
of  social  heredity  at  its  worst.  "  Our  wrestling  is  not 
against  flesh  and  blood,"  but  against  diabolical  ideas, 
against  "  spiritual  wickedness  in  high  places." 

A  consideration  of  the   fatal  power  of  the   caste  idea 
should  finally  and  forever  forbid  any  confidence  in  statis- 

tical  comparisons  of  social  or  racial  classes  in 
Its  Results  ,,    .  ,      ,    ,  1       •  1        • 

no  Measure         their  present  status   as  havmg  any  bearmg 

of  Natural  upon  relative  natural  capacity.     In  the  most 

Capacity  of         advanced  civilization  eighty  per  cent  of  the 

population  still  belong  to  the  "  lower  classes." 

Prof.  Lester  Ward  writes : 

Statistical  investigations  prove  that  notwithstand- 
ing their  superior  numbers,  they  furnish  less  than  ten 
per  cent  of  the  agents  of  civilization,  and  that  rela- 
tively to  population  they  furnish  less  than  one  per 
cent.  Their  influence  in  the  progress  of  the  world 
is  therefore  practically  nil,  although  their  capacities 
are  the  same  as  those  of  the  higher  classes,  to  whom, 
notwithstanding  their  small  numbers,  nearly  all  prog- 

[384] 


THE    PURPOSE    OF    GOD 


ress  is  due.  This  is  entirely  the  result  of  the  social 
stratification  caused  by  artificial  inequalities.  The 
abolition  of  social  classes,  could  it  be  accomplished, 
would  therefore  increase  the  efficiency  of  mankind  at 
least  one  hundredfold.^ 

This  means  that  defective  social  selection,  through  false 
tradition  and  unequal  environment,  is  robbing  the  race 
of  most  of  its  natural  human  wealth.  However  important, 
then,  the  improvement  of  the  breed  through  eugenics, 
manifest  duty  and  economy  demand  that  society  first  cease 
to  waste  what  it  already  has. 

Modem  sociology,  furthermore,  comes  squarely  forward 

with  an  answer  to  the  demand  that  the  human  stock  be 

„  ..,       improved    by    the    elimination    of    the   unfit. 

Progress  with-  ^  ^ 

out  Elimina-  In  the  first  place,  do  our  best,  we  cannot 
tion  through  defeat  the  elimination  of  the  least  fit.  Nature 
peremptorily  dismisses  them.  That  radi- 
cally defective  individuals  should  not  be  allowed  to  repro- 
duce their  kind,  all  agree.  But  the  ordinary  version  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  survival  of  the  fit  attacks  whole  classes 
and  races  of  probably  average  natural  capacity.  It 
proceeds  upon  the  false  assumption  that  those  are  unfit 
who  could  not  survive  the  struggle  for  existence  on  the 
brute  or  savage  plane ;  or,  more  moderately,  under  Ameri- 
can pioneer  conditions,  or  under  such  suppressive  social 
institutions  as,  for  example,  the  negro  experiences  in  the 
South.  But  life  is  no  longer  under  such  conditions  —  at 
least  necessarily.  We  have  a  new  basis  of  civilization, 
"  a  kingdom  of  man,"  in  which  environment  has  been 
radically  changed  so  that  more  and  more  of  those  who 
formerly  were  doomed  to  death  are  now  adapted  to  sur- 

*  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  "  Social  Classes  in  the  Light  of  Modern 
Sociological  Theory,"  vol.  xiii,  p.  627. 

25  [  385  ] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

vival.  Fitness  always  means  fitness  under  given  condi- 
tions. Artificial  modifications  have  become  permanent  and 
therefore  natural.  The  stall-fed  ox  would  be  no  equal 
competitor  with  Ursus  of  the  ice  age,  nor  could  it  endure 
exposure  with  the  cattle  of  the  Montana  range;  but  it 
will  never  have  to;  domestication  is  its  permanent  lot. 
Weaker  than  its  ancestors,  it  is  better  and  fitter  to  sur- 
vive under  present  conditions.  Similarly  —  to  borrow 
Professor  Patten's  illustration — it  is  useless  to  "toughen" 
a  child  by  making  him  go  barefooted  in  the  winter.  The 
ability  so  to  do  is  no  superiority  in  a  race  which  for  good 
and  all  has  adopted  shoes  and  stockings.  The  efficient 
strength  of  the  civiHzed  man  is  greater  than  that  of  the 
savage,  though  the  former  is  not  adapted  to  survival  in 
the  jungle.  Resources  are  now  funded  and  may  continue 
to  be  so  indefinitely.  "  None  of  us  liveth  to  himself." 
Under  a  life  more  fully  socialized,  the  human  units  are  not 
only  individually  sounder  and  more  potent  relative  to  their 
environment,  but,  also,  in  combination,  even  weakness  is 
made  strength.  Thus  for  a  long,  long  time,  and  with  no 
limit  which  we  can  see,  civilization  may  maintain  its 
standard  and  still  admit  to  privilege  an  immeasurable 
number  of  the  now  disinherited  classes. 

Such  a  society  will  not  merely  have  physical  and  moral 
health;  it  will  possess  also  the  inner  forces  of  progress. 
Suppressed  genius  will  be  unloosed  for  its  enrichment ; 
and,  through  organization,  the  present  supply  of  genius 
will  be  made  instantly  serviceable  to  the  world  at  large. 

When  culture  becomes  cosmopolitan,  as  it  is  to-day, 
the  success  of  a  race  turns  much  more  on  the  efficiency 
of  its  average  units  than  on  the  inventions  and  dis- 
coveries of  its  geniuses.  The  heaven-sent  man  who 
invents  the  locomotive,  or  the  dynamo,  or  the  germ 

[386  1 


THE    PURPOSE    OF    GOD 


theory,  confers  thereby  no  exclusive  advantage  on  his 
people,  or  his  race.  So  perfect  is  intellectual  com- 
merce, so  complete  is  the  organization  of  science,  that 
almost  at  once  the  whole  civilized  world  knows  and 
profits  by  his  achievements.  Nowadays  the  pioneer- 
ing genius  belongs  to  mankind.^ 

Thus  any  man,  group,  or  race  which  shall  prove  capable 
of  serving  the  present  age  may  be  preserved  without  fear 
of  his  influence  upon  the  future. 

Of   revolutionary   significance  for  problems   of   race  is 

Sc'    ffi   O  t'-    sociology's   extension   to   despised   backward 

mism  concern-    peoples  of  the  principles  of  j  udgment  which 

ing  Backward      she  applies  to  the  disinherited  classes  in  white 

civilization.     Thus  Ross  says: 

Social  psychology  ignores  uniformities  arising  di- 
rectly or  indirectly  out  of  race  endowment  —  negro 
volubility,  gipsy  nomadism,  Malay  vindictiveness, 
Singhalese  treachery,  Magyar  passion  for  music, 
Slavic  mysticism,  Teutonic  venturesomeness,  Ameri- 
can restlessness.  How  far  such  common  characters 
are  really  racial  in  origin  and  how  far  merely  social, 
is  a  matter  yet  to  be  settled.  Probably  they  are 
much  less  congenital  than  we  love  to  imagine.  "Race" 
is  the  cheap  explanation  tyros  offer  for  any  collec- 
tive trait  that  they  are  too  stupid  or  too  lazy  to 
trace  to  its  origin  in  the  physical  environment,  the 
social  environment,  or  historical  conditions.^ 

In  some  quarters  the  whole  science  of  sociology  is  now 
written  without  resort  to  the  word  or  idea  of  race.  So- 
called  "  races  "  are  regarded  as  merely  human  groups  with 

*  Ross,  "  Foundations  of  Sociology,"  pp.  S74,  375. 

*  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  "Social  Psychology,"  ch.  i,  vol.  IS, 
p.  578. 

[387] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

special  histories,  temporary  environmental  marks,  and 
signs  of  common  social  lot.  Their  heredity  does  not 
especially  need  improvement;  it  is  already  as  good  as  the 
human  average  to  which  nature  ever  pulls  back  her  more 
precocious  children.  Their  special  characteristics  are  easily 
modifiable.  The  gains  of  genius  from  any  human  quarter 
are  easily  transmissible  to  them.  The  uncontrollable 
powers  of  nature  are  as  apt  to  fight  for  as  against  them, 
spontaneous  variation  being  quite  capable  of  bringing 
good  out  of  Nazareth.  What  they  need  is  to  have  ad- 
verse social  pressure  taken  off,  and  to  have  the  forces 
of  social  control  exercised  in  their  behalf.  This  is  no  in- 
terference with  nature  but  the  expression  of  the  true 
nature  of  the  human  world  as  revealed  by  social  control 
following  Christian  ideals. 

IV.    THE  PURPOSE  OF  GOD  AND  THE  RACE 
QUESTION 

If  God  is  the  ruler  of  the  universe  it  is  proper  to  ex- 
pect to  find  some  indication  of  his  purpose  in  the  natural 
Futility  of  tendencies  of  things.     The  argument  of  this 

Scientific  Ver-     book  has  been  that  these  tendencies  are  not 

ic  s  o  con-        unfavorable  to  the  backward  peoples,  and  do 
vince  concern-  .  .     . 

ing  Human  not  forbid  the  effort   to  assimilate   them  to 

Issues  American    civilization    under    the    ideals    of 

democracy  and  of  Christian  brotherhood.  When  the  so- 
cial distortions  of  their  natures  are  removed,  all  stocks 
and  varieties  of  men  express  full  human  capacity  and  show 
promise  that  ultimately  the  downmost  may  be  raised  to 
participation  in  the  life  of  the  highest.  To  this  effect 
we  read  the  reasonable  verdict  of  science. 

We  do  not  expect  this  reading  of  the  verdict,  however, 

[388] 


THE    PURPOSE    OF    GOD 


to  convince  those  who  on  instinctive  and  dogmatic  grounds 
deny  the  possibility  of  a  democracy  across  the  color-line. 
Not  one  human  conviction  in  ten  thousand  is  actually 
arrived  at  on  scientific  grounds.  It  was  confessed  at  the 
outset  that  the  argument  could  expect  only  to  clear  away 
certain  intellectual  difficulties  for  those  who  want  to  be- 
lieve the  best  for  all  men.  It  will  not  move  the  South  — 
the  South  where  thousands  of  earnest  Christians  passion- 
ately hold  that  the  inexorable  laws  of  the  universe  doom 
the  negro  to  hopeless  inferiority ;  that  its  irreversible 
processes  condemn  him  to  extinction ;  and  that  the  at- 
tempt to  raise  him  ("  above  his  natural  station ")  is 
contending  against  the  purpose  of  God.  They  cling, 
therefore,  with  desperation  to  the  policy  of  social  separa- 
tion, fearing  that  any  relaxation  of  it  will  mean  inter- 
marriage and  the  deterioration  of  the  white  race.  Suppose 
that,  scientifically,  they  were  right  and  we  wrong?  What 
would  we  do  about  it.'' 

Having  honestly  attempted  to  put  myself  in  the  atti- 
tude of  a  Christian  Southerner,  I  believe  that  there  are 
Two  more  ^^'^  considerations  that  go  deeper  than  any- 

Fundamental  thing  by  which  he  thinks  to  justify  the  racial 
Considerations:  policy  of  his  section,  or  of  any  other  like- 
and  pLali?"  ^  minded  Anglo-Saxon  group.  First,  the  dig- 
of  Personal  nity  and  finality  of  personal  solutions  of  hu- 
Solutions  jjjg^jj  problems.   Whenever  a  negro  has  achieved 

character  and  self-respect;  whenever  he  has  reared  a 
home,  brought  up  children,  acquired  a  modest  competency, 
done  useful  work,  counted  on  the  side  of  social  order,  kept 
courage  in  his  own  soul  and  brought  cheer  to  his  fellows, 
honored  God  in  his  heart  and  in  the  deeds  of  his  earthly 
pilgrimage,  then  the  fashion  and  force  of  such  a  life  has 
raised  it  above  race  barriers.     And  whenever  a  white  man, 

[389  1 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

the  master  of  like  achievements  (and  none  can  do  more  than 
these)  has  looked  upon  his  negro  brother  without  scorn, 
reverencing  in  him  the  same  struggle  and  victory  that 
he  knows  in  himself,  appreciating,  yes  and  loving,  the 
simple,  effective  goodness  of  him  and  the  glory  of  his  as- 
piration, then  the  galling,  maiming,  fatal  aspect  of  the 
race  issue  is  obliterated.  Whenever  these  two  men,  dis- 
regarding classifications  and  traditions  in  the  presence  of 
vital  experience,  see  eye  to  eye,  so  far  as  men  may,  un- 
derstanding each  other  in  part,  and  for  the  rest  bowing 
before  the  mystery  of  the  unique  selfhood  of  each  soul, 
the  race  problem  is  altogether  solved.  Any  one  may  solve 
it  who  will  —  a  case  at  a  time.  It  is  solved  between  the 
Texas  judge  and  his  "  Ned,  nigger  and  gentleman." 
Wisely  said  Chancellor  Barrows  of  the  University  of 
Georgia  at  the  inauguration  of  a  Northern  white  presi- 
dent over  a  negro  university,  "  Forget  race :  think  only 
of  the  individual."  Whoever  does  this  in  one  case,  giving 
the  individual  simply  and  completely  a  standing  of  indi- 
vidual worth,  is  beyond  challenge.  The  case  does  not  con- 
flict with  racial  verdicts  of  science,  for  or  against;  it  is 
simply  outside  of  them. 

Now,  such  saving  personal  adjustments  are  everywhere 
admitted.  They  are  infinitely  more  common  South  than 
North,  and  are  the  moral  leaven  of  the  race  situation. 
Nothing  could  do  the  Northern  philanthropist  more  good 
than  to  learn  the  cordial,  affectionate,  thoroughgoing 
Southern  appreciation  of  the  individual  negro  and  the 
genuine  equity  of  some  of  its  relations  with  him.  But, 
theoretically  speaking,  such  adjustments  are  disregarded 
as  exceptions. 

But  what  is  an  exception?  In  answering  we  will  doubt- 
less be  accused  of  lugging  in  a  whole  philosophy  by  the 

[390] 


THE    PURPOSE    OF    GOD 


^       . .  ears.      Not    so ;     for   in    any    attempt   at   a 

iyxceptions  are  .  -^  \ 

the  Founda-  thorough-going  answer  a  whole  philosophy 
tion-Stones  of  plunges  in,  inevitably,  of  its  own  accord.  As 
we  understand  the  nature  of  the  universe, 
whenever  any  "  two  of  you  shall  agree  on  earth  as  touch- 
ing anything  "  —  whenever  personalities,  respecting  and 
inviting  each  other  to  express  whatever  there  is  in  them, 
come  to  an  untrammeled,  vital  adjustment,  there  is  created 
a  new  center  of  being  and  energy.  Such  a  contract  is  a  bit 
of  the  real  thing  —  Reahty  itself  —  and  whatever  else 
exists  is  only  more  of  the  same  sort.  All  that  appears  as 
"  star  "  or  "  sun,"  all  that  operates  as  the  "  tendency  of 
nature,"  or  lords  it  as  "  law,"  is  at  bottom  some  adjust- 
ment of  personalities.  Here  is  a  process  which  cuts  under 
any  other.  Was  there  a  law  of  nature  to  the  contrary  a 
moment  ago.f^  It  is  now  abrogated  by  the  original  and 
underived  sovereignty  of  the  two  who  agree.  Vast  and 
venturesome  language,  this?  At  least  it  is  time  we  were 
learning  it.  Too  long  have  we  been  kept  by  conceptual 
scarecrows  from  the  dearest  of  human  possessions  —  the 
possibility  of  universal  brotherhood.  "  Race,"  a  mere 
word ;  a  classificatory  device  intended  as  a  labor-saving  in- 
strument of  human  thought ;  a  generic  term,  used  of 
masses  but  true  of  no  single  individual,  has  fooled  us  into 
unmanly  slavery.  Philosophically  speaking,  race  does  not 
exist  but  only  individuals. 

"For  there  is  neither  East  nor  West  — 
Border  nor  breed  nor  birth; 
When  two  strong  men  meet  face  to  face, 
Though  they  come  from  the  ends  of  the  earth." 

This  is  not  poetical  "  bluff  " ;  it  is  the  direct  and  logical 
outcome  of  a  philosophy  which  believes  that  personalities 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

are  the  ultimate  stuff  of  the  universe,  and  that  in  their 
mutual  interactions  the  world  is  a-making. 

There  is  another  side  to  this  doctrine.  Whoever  forces 
an  adjustment  with  another  personality  which  denies  the 
full  nature  and  right  of  both;  whoever  overbears  the 
essential  dignity  of  his  brother's  aspiration,  and  has  con- 
tempt for  its  unique  sanctity,  he  also  creates  a  fragment 
of  Reality,  but  creates  it  wrong.  There  is  no  blacker 
sin  than  contempt.  "  Whosoever  shall  say  to  his  brother, 
Thou  fool,  shall  be  in  danger  of  the  hell  of  fire."  That 
race  antipathy  is  deeply  entrenched  in  the  universe  we 
have  no  mind  to  deny ;  we  only  deny  that  it  is  entrenched 
behind  unyielding  laws  of  nature.  Its  actual  citadel  is 
the  unbrotherly  spirit,  the  stubborn  and  baffling  fact  of 
which  we  dramatize  as  the  Problem  of  Evil. 

This  introduces  the  second  consideration,  which  I  ven- 
ture to  think  goes  deeper  than  any  of  the  philosophical 
2  Th  F'  1  foundations  of  the  South's  race  policy, 
Solution  not  namely,  that  the  existence  of  evil  in  the 
an  Explanation  universe  presents  a  moral  dilemma  of  which 
the  final  solution  is  not  an  explanation  but 
a  choice.  Some  of  us  believe  that  the  order  of  nature 
is  for  us  and  for  human  hope;  but  if  not  we  would  go 
on  doing  just  as  we  are  doing. 

We  do  not  for  a  moment  admit  that  the  trend  of  natu- 
ral processes  has  to  be  identified  with  the  purpose  of 
God.  We  do  not  find  complete  moral  unity  in  the  universe 
as  it  stands.  It  seems  to  us  there  is  some  real  evil  in  it. 
Admitting  that,  we  do  not  feel  under  obligation  to  wor- 
ship anything  which  looks  like  evil.  In  a  universe  in 
which  one  slaps  a  mosquito,  he  reserves  the  right  to  take 
issue  with  the  law  of  gravitation,  if  need  be.  A  big 
mosquito  is  not  God;   a  big  evil  is  not  holy.     The  bigger, 

[392] 


THE    PURPOSE    OF    GOD 


the  worse !  If  cruelty  has  entrenched  itself  in  the  processes 
of  nature,  so  much  the  worse  for  them.  We  will  follow 
the  impulse  of  brotherhood  against  evolution  as  quickly 
as  with  it.  Who  says  we  must  knuckle  down  to  the  phys- 
ical universe.''  We  simply  do  not  know  yet  how  far  it  will 
prove  plastic  to  moral  effort ;  therefore  we  will  make  the 
hypothesis  of  faith,  "  He  has  put  all  things  under  his 
feet."  That  this  is  faith,  not  demonstration,  we  cheer- 
fully confess.  "We  see  not  yet  all  things  subjected  to 
him,  but  we  see  Jesus,"  and  choose  to  take  his  part  who- 
ever or  whatever  is  against  him. 

Is  there  other  ground  of  hope  for  anybody .''  Is  Anglo- 
Saxon  salvation  based  on  the  shape  of  the  skull.''  Was 
Salvation  for  science  crucified  for  you  or  were  you  bap- 
All  if  for  Any  tized  into  the  name  of  anthropology?  As 
a  mortal  man,  is  the  white  less  transient  and  futile  than 
the  black?  Has  he  any  special  revelation,  a  peculiar 
demonstrable  clue  to  the  mystery  of  life?  When  the 
author  of  "  The  Color-Line "  dismisses  negro  optimism 
with  the  assertion  "  that  the  hopefulness  of  the  majority  is 
quite  artificial,  based  on  some  rehgious  faith  or  moral  trust, 
and  that  the  really  weighty  answers  are  given  by  the 
hopeless  minority,"  ^  does  he  really  mean  to  say  that  his 
own  exceeding  confidence  in  the  earthly  future  of  the 
white  races  is  not  also  artificial  in  the  sense  that  it  is 
based  on  "  some  rehgious  faith  or  moral  trust  "  ?  If  not, 
on  what,  pray,  is  it  based?  I  at  least  know  nothing 
beyond  the  apostle's  plea: 

Who  shall  change  our  vile  body,  that  it  may  be 

fashioned  like  unto  his  glorious  body,  according  to 

the  working  whereby   he  is  able  even  to  subdue  all 

things  unto  himself. 

»  Smith,  "The  Color-Line."  p.  177. 

[393] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

If  this  avails  for  any,  it  may  for  all;  it  cannot  be 
bounded  by  the  color  of  the  skin. 

If,  then,  the  most  unfriendly  anthropology  should  tri- 
umph over  the  lower  races ;  if  they  were  scientifically 
Facing  the  branded  unfit;    if  it  were  certain  that  their 

Alternative  participation  in  our  civilization  meant  a  low- 

ered physical  stamina,  a  decreasing  mental  capacity,  an 
increasing  moral  tragedy  for  all,  we  would  still  carry 
out  the  program  of  the  gospel  at  any  cost.  We  may  be 
beside  ourselves,  but  "  the  love  of  Christ  constraineth  us ; 
because  we  thus  judge,  that  one  died  for  all,  therefore  all 
died;  and  he  died  for  all,  that  they  that  live  should  no 
longer  live  unto  themselves,  but  unto  him  who  for  their 
sakes  died  and  rose  again.  Wherefore  we  henceforth 
know  no  man  after  the  flesh." 

I  have  held  in  my  hand  the  diary  of  Snelling.  With 
a  dozen  Micronesians,  including  women  and  children,  he 
was  lost  while  making  an  evangelistic  tour  of  scattered 
islands,  and  drifted  in  an  open  boat  for  fifty-one  days. 
With  vivid  simplicity  the  daily  entries  tell  how  they  starved 
to  death  and  kept  the  faith.  As  the  end  approaches,  the 
few  survivors  are  practically  crazy,  and  he  in  a  delirium 
of  worship,  praising  God  and  gasping  Ufe  away.  I  do 
not  count  that  an  inglorious  end.  I  would  be  willing  to 
have  humanity  finish  earth  like  that! 

Humanity  is  out  on  the  uncharted  bosom  of  the  uni- 
verse in  as  frail  a  boat,  a  huddle  of  black,  white,  red,  and 
yellow.  They  do  not  know  that  any  of  them  will  get  to 
land.  Science  least  of  all  guarantees  it.  We  live  by 
faith. 

The  white  man  might  throw  the  colored  man  overboard 
—  though  since  the  Japanese-Russian  war  it 's  a  ques- 
tion who  'd  go  over  first ;   but  craft  might  prevail  against 

[394] 


THE    PURPOSE    OF    GOD 


numbers ;  the  wliite  man  might  take  all  the  food  for  him- 
self ;  it  might  sustain  life  until  land  appears ;  he  might 
reach  his  desired  haven.     Suppose  he  could. 

In  a  recent  magazine  story,  Bully  McLean,  the  "  bucko- 
mate,"  finds  a  similar  problem   confronting  him: 

The  captain  raised  his  voice  and  called  to  the  mate 
to  come  aft. 

"  All  right.  Captain,  I  'm  coming,"  bawled  the  mate. 
*'  Shake  her  up,  now,  you  lubbers ;  and  don't  you  stop 
work,  or  I  '11  be  the  death  of  you.  Walk  her  round, 
bullies !    I  '11  be  back  in  a  brace  of  shakes." 

As  he  waited,  the  captain  wondered  how  the  mate 
would  take  the  proposal  to  abandon  the  ship  and 
leave  the  blacks  to  drown.  Bully  McLean  hated  all 
negroes,  he  knew  —  hated  them  whole-heartedly  and 
impartially,  because  a  gang  of  them  had  once  tried 
to  murder  him  in  Baltimore.  Indeed,  he  had  shipped 
in  the  Brynhilda  only  to  get  a  chance,  as  he  expressed 
it,  "  to  bullyrag  a  crowd  of  bloody  blacks  and  raise 
Cain  and  kill  Injuns  generally."  But  then,  these 
bucko-mates  were  not  without  a  code  of  honor  of 
their  own,  and  one  could  not  always  forecast  their 
conduct  under  given  circumstances. 

"  What  do  you  want,  Captain }  I  can't  leave  those 
black  rascals  long." 

The  captain,  suddenly  confronted  by  the  towering 
form  of  the  first  officer,  asked  nervously  how  much 
water  there  was  in  the  hold. 

"  About  six  feet,  but  not  gaining  as  fast  as  it 
was." 

"  She  '11  go  down  pretty  soon  now,"  said  the  old 
man ;  "  and  I  guess  —  I  think  we  'd  better  abandon 
her  at  once." 

"  Well,  I  '11  get  the  other  boats  over,  then ;  but 
I  think  we  could  keep  her  afloat  till  daylight." 

[895] 


CHRISTIAN    RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THE    SOUTH 

"  The  other  boats  are  smashed  up,"  the  captain 
said  hurriedly,  hoarsely.     "  No  use  to  launch  them." 

"  Well,  that 's  bad,"  commented  the  mate  quietly. 
"  The  quarter-boat  won't  carry  all  hands." 

"  No.  It  '11  hold  the  white  crowd,  but  not  the 
niggers.     We  '11  have  to  leave  them." 

"  What.'^  You  mean  the  afterguard  are  to  save 
themselves  and  leave  the  crew  to  drown .?  " 

"  There 's  nothing  else  to  do.  Mate.  All  hands 
can't  go  in  the  boat,  and  white  men  take  precedence 
over  black." 

"  Well,  Captain,"  said  the  mate  coolly,  "  you  can 
do  what  you  please,  but  I  stand  by  the  crew.  What 
a  captain's  duty  under  the  circumstances  may  be  is 
not  for  me  to  say ;  but  a  mate's  first  duty  is  to  his 
ship,  and  his  second  to  his  crew,  white  or  black.  If 
I  saved  my  life  by  leaving  my  crew  to  drown,  I  'd 
never  be  able  to  —  to  hold  up  my  head  again  among 
honest  men." 

The  captain  emitted  an  energetic  grunt,  then  mut- 
tered bitterly :  "  Oh,  yes ;  a  captain  should  go  down 
with  his  ship  —  that  is  all  very  fine,  very  heroic. 
But  when  a  man  has  a  wife  and  children  dependent 
on  him  he 's  got  to  think  of  the  bread-and-butter 
aspect  of  things." 

"  Maybe  so  —  maybe  so ;  it 's  all  in  the  point  of 
view,  I  dare  say."  ^ 

"  It 's  all  in  the  point  of  view  " ;  the  Judgment  Day  is 
no  more.  There  is  a  point  of  view  which  thinks  it  sees 
that  there  is  one  moral  law  for  the  individual  and  another 
for  the  race;  that  the  latter  must  save  itself  at  all  costs.^ 
Authority  cannot  settle  that  issue;  it  is  a  matter  of 
moral  taste,  of  an  inner   sense  of  the  fitness   of  things. 

•  McClure's  Magazine,  vol.  xxx,  p.  694. 
2  See  Smith,  "  The  Color-Line,"  p.  190. 

[  396  ] 


THE    PURPOSE    OF    GOD 


We  can  merely  testify  to  our  point  of  view.  Whatever 
the  duty  of  captains  it  seems  to  an  every-day  mate  not 
worth  while  to  live  at  the  expense  of  his  crew  —  white 
or  black. 

See  the  other  alternative!  In  the  splendor  of  morning 
the  super-man  stands  in  blonde  glory  on  a  fairer  shore 
Man  and  than  ever  man  trod.     He  builds  his  new  life 

Super-man  as  far  above  ours  as  ours  above  the  brutes. 

Intellect  is  ennobled,  beauty  perfected,  gentleness  en- 
throned. Women  are  more  glorious  than  any  dream,  and 
all  men  walk  in  kingly  freedom.  They  look  into  each 
other's  faces,  white  and  glowing,  and  are  happy  —  until 
they  go  out  to  meet  the  silent  and  unwearied  contempt 
of  the  stars,  to  hear  all  the  sounding  voices  of  the  seas 
cry,  "  Where  is  thy  brother.?  "  The  finest  breed  of  human 
animals  may  inhabit  a  moral  hell.  Better  be  lost  on  the 
pitiless  waters,  starving  with  a  huddle  of  colored  folks, 
delirious  but  not  despicable,  agonizing  but  not  ashamed. 
For  not  idly  is  it  written,  "  It  is  better  for  thee  to  enter 
into  life  maimed,  than  having  two  hands  to  go  into  hell." 
And  what  shall  it  profit  the  Anglo-Saxon  if  he  gain  the 
whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul.'* 


[397] 


INDEX 


INDEX* 


Abbott,  Lyman,  quoted,  270 
Academic  and  Industrial  School, 

Kowaliga,  Ala.,  136 
Adams,    Samuel    Hopkins,    quoted, 

178 
Africa  and  African  traits,  117,  141, 

197,  234,  248 
Agriculture  in  South,  52,  107,  133, 

146,  190,  233,  247  ff. 
Alabama,  47,  66,  69,  73,  122,  136, 

137,    140,     147,    150,    219,    263, 

304, 
Alaska,  23 
Alderman,  President  E.  A.,  50,  55, 

56,  111,  113,  121,  174,  185 
Aliens,  congestion  of,  in  cities,  26 
Allen  Normal  School,  Thomas- 

ville,  Ga.,  87,  95,  215,  239 
Alston,  Leonard,  quoted,  117 
Amalgamation    of    races,    31,    32. 

Vide  Miscegenation 
American  Indians,   20,   23,  29,   45, 

62,  300,  314,  320 
American    Missionary    Associa- 
tion, vii,  34,  36,  40,  62,  73,  87, 

90,  132,  135,  158,  161,  209  ff.,  268, 

289,  291,  351,  352  ff. 
American  Negro  Academy,  Publica- 
tions of,  267 
Anglo-Saxon,  112 
Appalachian  Mountains,  80,  304  ff., 

308  ff.,  312 
Arkansas,  46,  53,  236 
Armstrong,  Samuel  Chapman,  265, 

268  ff. 
Asheville,  80,  304 


Athletics  for  negro,  255 

Atlanta  Theological  Seminary, 
Atlanta,  Ga.,  363 

Atlanta  University,  210,  214,  241, 
243,  247,  252 

Atlanta  University  Publications, 
quoted,  150,  151,  153,  155,  156, 
158,  275 

Avery  Normal  iNSTrruTE,  Charles- 
ton, S.  C,  228,  256 

Baker,   Ray  Stannard,   quoted,   42, 

85,  105,  221,  369 
Ballard  Normal  School,  Macon. 

Ga.,  224,  228 
Banks  and  savings  institutions,  142, 

147 
Baptists,    148,   150,    151,   152;    154, 

155,  159,  209,  259 
Barrows,  Chancellor,  390 
Beach  Institute,  Savannah,  Ga., 

175,  225,  227,  228 
Beachton  School,  Beachton,  Ga., 

214 
Berea  College,  210,  212,  316,  320, 

362,  365 
"Black  Belt,"  72,  81,  86,  136,  210, 

218,  219 
Black  Mountain  Academy,  Evarts, 

Ky.,  313,  328 
Border  States,  100 
Bowman,  Rev.  Charles  E.,  quoted, 

60 
Bratten,  Bishop,  quoted,  115 
Brev^^er  Normal  School,   Green- 
wood, S.  C,  236 


'  For  the  convenience  of  those  wishing  to  make  a  detailed  study  of  the  American 
Missionary  Association,  titles  relating  directly  to  its  work  are  capitalized. 

[401] 


INDEX 


Brick  School,  Enfield,  N.  C,  38, 

132,  251,  257,  262,  291 
Brigham,  Albert  P.,  quoted,  19,  54, 

307 
"Brown  Fellowship,"  75 
Brown,  William  G.,  78 
Brunner,  Dr.  W.  F.,  quoted,  175 
Bryce,  James,  71,  quoted,  112,  113 
Building    and    Loan    Associations, 

143,  162 

Calhoun,  John  C,  267 
Calhoun  School,  137 
Canada,  negro  refugees  in,  62 
Carmack,  Senator,  x 
Carnegie  Building,  38,  242,  362 
Carver,  Professor  George  N.,  42 
Census  Bulletin,  quoted,  171,  305 
Charleston.  S.  C,  74,  104,  177 
Charleston     News     and      Courier, 

quoted,  54 
Chattanooga  Tradesman,  190 
Child  labor,  186,  337,  356 
Christianity     and     race     problems, 

367  ff. 
Church   as    Americanizing  agency, 

58 
Cities,  problems  of  negroes  in,  163, 

254 
"Color  line,"  101,  105,  116  ff. 
Columbia  State,  quoted,  103,  189 
Commissioner  of  Education,  reports 

referred  to,  47,  49,  51,  52,  100,  210 
Commons,  Professor  John  R.,  quoted, 

21,  24,  31,  32,  81,  122,  188,  191 
Competition    between    races,     106, 

120,  183,  185 
Conference    of    Education    in    the 

South,  64,  157 
Congregationalists,    90,     152,     156, 

159,  160,  161,  163,  164,  227,  232, 

359,  363,  379 
Consultative  Committee  on  Higher 

Elementary  Education,  280,  282 


Cooperation,    economic,    121,     143; 

in  education,  63 
Cotton,  71,  73,  79,  136,  146,  336 
Cotton  Valley  School,  Fort  Davis, 

Ala.,  220 
Criminals,   negro,   37,   75,   82,    135, 

164,  198,  202 
Crummell,  Alexander,  quoted,  267 

Davis,  Jefferson,  66,  102 
Death-rate,  75,  82,  168,  206,  226 
Democracy,  28,  30,  32,  34,  64,  125, 

295  ff.,  382  ff. 
Denominational  boards,  61 
Department     of     Agriculture,     71; 

Year  Book  of,  quoted,  52,  53 
Destiny  of  negro.  206,  338  ff. 
Deveaux,  Colonel,  226 
Dewey,  Professor  John,  quoted,  266 
Distribution  of  population,  72,  132 
District  of  Columbia,  140 
Dixon,  Thomas,  103 
Domestic  science,  education  in,  249, 

352  ff. 
Dorchester  Academy,   Mcintosh, 

Ga.,  232,  235 
Dowd,  Jerome,  quoted,  184 
DuBois,   Professor    W.  E.  B.,  115, 

135,  164,  165,  252,  372 
Dunbar,  Paul  L.,  the  poet,  164 

Education,  in  Northern  States,  47, 
51 ;  in  Southern  States,  47,  51, 
55,  57,  58;  principles  of,  in  a 
democracy,  34,  57,  64,  278  ff., 
295  ff . ;  of  negro  (see  Negro  edu- 
cation) ;  as  served  by  negro  edu- 
cational experiments,  265,  281 

"Educational  Revival,"  57 

Emerson  Institute,  Mobile,  Ala., 
140 

Entertainment  for  the  negro,  255 

Episcopal  Church,  59,  95,  104,  152, 
154,  156,  209,  227 


[402] 


INDEX 


Ewing,  l^v.  Quincy,  quoted,  ix 
Extension  work,  257 

Faduma,  Rev.  O.,  158 

"Farmers'  Day,"  262 

Farmville,  Va.,  150 

Fessenden    Academy,    Fessenden, 

Fla.,  37,  236 
Fifteenth  Amendment,  123 
FisK  University,  Nashville,  Tenn., 

100,  132,  163,  215,  241,  242,  243, 

246,  247,  252,  291 
Fleming,  Walter,  quoted,  73,  124 
Florida,  37 
Forests,  54,  72 
Fox,    John,    316,    325,    326,    328, 

347 
Freedman's  Bureau,  63,  268 
Friends,  Society  of,  209 
FrisseU,  Principal,  289 
Frontier,  social  effects  of,  25 

Galloway,  Bishop,  quoted,  115 
General  Education  Board,  65,  351 
Geographic  divisions  in  South,  66, 

69,  70,  304  ff. 
Georgia,  60,  73,  86  ff.,  100,  122,  123, 

124,  134,  146,  152,  163,  172,  174, 

175,  185,  209,  224,  226,  232,  235, 

292,  304,  310 
Georgia  Medical  Association,  89 
German  elements,  68 
Giddings,  Professor  Franklin,  quoted, 

182 
Girls'  Industrial  School,  Moor- 
head,  Miss.,  264 
Gloucester  Co.,  Va.,  135 
Gloucester  High  and  Industrial 

School,    Cappahosic,    Va.,    135, 

143,  236 
Gr,\nd  View  Normal  Institute, 

Grand  View,  Tenn.,  348,  353 
Group-economy,    84,    93,    96,    142, 

146,  165 


Hall,  President  G.  Stanley,  quoted, 

297 
Hampton  Institute,   13J,   210,   232, 

251,  265,  268,  270,  274,  288,  289, 

290,  291,  294 
Hargis,  Judge,  66,  326 
Harlan  Co.,  Ky.,  311 
Hart,  Professor  A.  B.,  28,  74 
Hawaii,  22 
Health  of   negro,  118,   168,   171  ff., 

256  ff. 
Highland     College,     Williamsburg, 

Ky.,  365 
Hill,  O.  J.,  190 
Hillsboro  School,  Hillsboro,  N.  C, 

218 
Hoffman,     Frederick     H.,     quoted, 

185,  189 
Holloway,  Rev.  William  H.,  xii,  86, 

96 
Howard  University,  Washington, 

D.  C,  161,  210,  240,  241,  249 
Hutchinson,    Dr.    Woods,    quoted, 

254 
Hyde,  President  W.  D.,  273 

Idaho,  132 

Illiteracy  of  negro,  46,  55 ;  of  South- 
ern whites,  46,  305,  310 

Imitation,  psychology  of,  129 

Immigration  to  United  States,  20, 
26,  121,  145 

Immigration  Congress,  107,  190 

Inborden,  Principal  T.  S.,  257  ff. 

Indian  Territory,  46 

Industrial    Education,     history    of, 

268  ff . ;  theoretical  considerations, 

269  ff . ;  European  experience  with, 
279,  281  ff. 

Inefficiency,  psychology  of,  292 
Insurance,     negro    and,    94,     142, 

147 
Iowa,  48,  50,  132 
Itahans,  105,  190,  191,  192 


403 


INDEX 


Jamaica,  62 
Jeanes  Board,  120 
Jefferson,  Thomas,  23,  63 
Jews,  26,  29,  105 
Jonesboro  (Temi.)  School,  132 

Kelsey,  Professor  Carl,  xii,  quoted, 

36,  72,  81 
Kentucky,  47,  55,  69,  100,  304,  310, 

320,  339,  341 
Kowaliga  enterprise,  vide  Academic 

and  Industrial  School,  Kowaliga, 

Ala. 

Labor  problem  and  race  conflict, 
77,  92,  106,  121,  145 

Land,  how  negroes  acquire,  136, 
258  ff. 

Lee,  R.  E.,  66 

Le  Moyne  Institxjte,  Memphis, 
Tenn.,  228,  255,  256,  257 

Library,  Pubhc,  257 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  66,  117,  331,  362 

Lincoln  Academy,  King's  Moun- 
tain, N.  C,  236 

Lincoln  Normal  School,  Marion, 
Ala.,  236,  263 

Louisiana,  46,  53,  108,  161,  236 

Lumber  industry,  347 

Ltnn  School,  Lynn,  N.  C,  356 

Maryland,  304 

Massachusetts,  47,  49,  278 

Massachusetts  Commission  on  In- 
dustrial Education,  quoted,  279, 
281,  284,  285,  286 

Mathers,  Sir  William,  quoted,  284 

Mayo,  Dr.  A.  D.,  quoted,  209 

Mayor's  Report,  Savannah,  Ga., 
quoted,  179,  209 

Memphis,  Tenn.,  255,  257 

Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  negro, 
148,  150,  154,  155,  159,  209; 
Southern,  59,  60 ;  Northern,  156 


Miles,  Mrs.,  quoted,  322,  328,  343 

Miller,  Professor  Kelly,  quoted,  159, 
275,  294 

Millsaps,  Major  R.  W.,  41 

Miscegenation,  104,  238 

Missions  and  missionaries,  compe- 
tency of  testimony,  35,  43;  to 
various  regions  of  United  States, 
45;  in  South,  59,  61;  in  negro 
education,  209  ff, ;  to  Appalachian 
Highlanders,  350  ff . ;  various  ac- 
tivities of,  36,  63,  209  ff. 

Mississippi,  41,  54,  55,  71,  72,  100, 
105,  132,  191,  209,  236,  264,  275, 
278 

Missouri,  20,  46 

Mobihty  of  negro,  81,  120,  132,  194 

Montana,  132 

Movements  of  population,  79,  81 

Mulatto,  74,  85,  244,  381 

Murphy,  Rev.  Edgar  Gardner, 
quoted,  40,  126,  207 

National  Educational  Association 
Report,  quoted,  48 

National  Playground  Association, 
254 

"Negro  a  Beast,"  pamphlet,  114 

Negro,  alleged  shortcomings  of, 
166  ff.;  physical,  171  ff.;  eco- 
nomic, 183  ff.;  moral,  114,  198 ff.; 
explanation  as  racial  traits,  205  ff. 

Negro,  American;  numbers,  23,  46, 
55,  62,  132,  166;  occupations  of, 
38,  82,  91,  133,  183,  226;  farmer, 
42,  134,  185,  193;  tenant,  89, 
220,  258  ff. ;  domestic  servant,  40, 
238,  239;  artisan,  38,  40,  82, 
97;  professions,  83,  90,  93,  97, 
226,  247  ff.,  274;  ministers,  90, 
248,  362;  business,  37,  38,  40, 
42,  74,  89,  91,  98,  107,  190,  191, 
202,  226;  federal  service,  90, 
140;     material    progress    of,    74, 


404] 


INDEX 


87,  88,  204,  219,  226;  ownership 
of  property,  88,  134  flF.,  162,  219, 
232,  233;  landlords,  234;  wealth, 
76,  139,  219;  institutions,  60,  95, 
140  ff.,  209  ff..  234,  257;  home 
and  family,  85,  88,  141,  186,  201; 
marriage,  85,  88,  141 ;  economic 
institutions,  94,  142  S. ;  publica- 
tions, 151,  267;  churches  and 
religion,  148,  152  ff. ;  schools  sus- 
tained by,  60,  100,  209  ff.;  phi- 
lanthropies, 95,  119,  164;  social 
classes,  75,  84,  120;  race  leaders, 
85,  119,  164,  265  ff.,  360;  public 
opinion  toward,  viii,  101,  102, 
104,  110,  113,  200  ff.;  handicaps, 
116, 118, 169-170, 186, 187,  200 ff.; 
esthetic  expression,  38,  83,  164, 
245 

Negro  education,  47,  56,  209  ff.; 
ungraded,  213;  elementary,  57, 
216  ff.,  281,  288;  secondary,  100, 
223  ff.,  237  ff.,  282,  288 ;  collegiate, 
90,  240  ff. ;  professional,  90,  248  ff. ; 
industrial  and  agricultural,  215, 
223,  230,  250  ff.,  271  ff.;  contro- 
versy over,  57,  211,  271  ff.;  diffu- 
sion and  concentration  of  schools, 
210  ff.,  240,  361,  362;  discipline, 
244;  equipment,  242;  constitu- 
ency, 243 

"Negro,  new,"  85 

Negro  women,  numerical  excess  of, 
200;  moral  peril  of,  117,  200, 
222,  237;  as  breadwinners,  83, 
89,  179,  186;  education  of,  237  ff., 
249  ft'. ;  organized  activities  of, 
95,  142,  164;  as  home-makers, 
vide  Negro,  American,  home  and 
family 

New  Mexico,  46 

Normal  and  Industrial  Col- 
legiate Institute,  Joppa,  Ala., 
354 


North  Carolina,  46,  68,  69,  73,  100, 
132,  137,  158,  160,  218,  275,  304, 
310,  338 

Northern  people,  attitude  of,  toward 
negro,  117,  166;  toward  the 
South,  \'ii 

Northern  States,  wealth,  50;  edu- 
cation (see  Education  in) ;  com- 
parative progress,  47-51 

Norwood,  Judge,  197 

Nurses,  training,  250 

Ogden  parties,  vii 

Ohio,  66 

Oklahoma,  101,  132 

Orientals  in  America,   24,  29,   45, 

105,  367 
Oyster  industry,  135 

Page,  Thomas  Nelson,  125 
Parks  and  playgrounds,  254 
Patten,  Professor  Simon  R.,  quoted, 

142,  145,  196,  380,  386 
Payne,  Bishop  Daniel,  149 
Peabody  Academy,  Troy,  N.  C, 

158 
Peabody  Fund,  351 
Peabody,  George  F.,  64,  243 
Pearsons,  Dr.,  362 
Pennsylvania,  67 
Peonage  in  South,  188 
Physiography,  68,  69,  71,  73 
Piedmont  College,  Demorest,  Ga., 

358,  362 
Piedmont  region,  56,  67,  72,  81,  218, 

312 
Pilgrim  Fathers,  17 
Plato,  quoted,  120 
Pleasant  Hill  Academy,  Pleasant 

Hill,  Tenn.,  352 
PoUtics,  negro  and,  122,  124 
"Poor  white,"  75,  77,  102 
Porto  Rico,  22 
Pou,  Hon.  James  E.,  quoted,  137 


405] 


INDEX 


Presbyterian  Chiu"ch,  Southern,  59, 

154,  159,  209 
Price,  Principal,  143 
Proctor,  Rev.  H.  H.,  163 
"Prophet     of    the     Great     Smoky 

Mountains,  The,"  76 
Psychology  and  race,  128,  196 
Public  schools  for  negroes,  224,  227 

Quakers,  68 

Race    and    race    problems,    ix,    28, 

99,  116,  206,  367  tf. 
Race  consciousness,  93,  101 
Races  in  America,  68 
Reading-rooms,  257 
Refugees,  negro,  62,  216 
Reversion  of  race,  234 
Rockingham  (N.  C.)  Church,  160 
Roosevelt,  O.,  President,    110,   254, 

370 
Rose,    Professor   Wycliffe,     quoted, 

49 
Ross,  Professor  E.  A.,  quoted,  76, 

118,  128,  170,  171,  181,  185,  387 
Rural  conditions  and  problems,  49, 

230  ff. 
Russell,  Assistant  Attorney-General, 

quoted,  188 

Saluda   Seminaby,  Saluda,  N.  C, 

357 
Savannah,  Ga.,  174,  197,  198,  202, 

225,  226 
Scotch-Irish,  67.  68 
Secret  societies,  142 
Segregation,  84,  87,  96,  119 
Selection,  biological,  373  ff . ;  social, 

78,  84,  377  ff. 
Sex  and  race,  109 

Shaler,  Professor  N.  S.,  quoted,  184 
Slavery,  23,  33,  34,  69,  74 
Smith,    Governor  Hoke,    122,   287, 


Smith,  Professor  W.  B.,  quoted,  128, 
173,  393,  396 

Social  classes,  278 

"Social  equality,"  110 

Sociology  and  race  doctrines,  75, 
114,  128,  141,  205  ff. 

Soil  survey,  71,  74 

South  Atlantic  Quarterly,  viii,  xi 

South  CaroHna,  55,  103,  189,  304, 
310 

Southern  churches,  characteristics, 
58 ;  work  for  negroes,  59 

Southern  Educational  Association, 
quoted,  295,  297,  310 

Southern  Immigration  Congress,  107 

Southern  Mountaineers,  56-70, 
304  ff.;  history  of,  19,  69,  130, 
318;  social  types  and  diversities, 
80,  306  ff.,  317-334;  in  politics, 
69,  320;  in  industry,  335  ff.;  effect 
of  recent  movements  upon,  79, 
332 ;  missionary  work  for,  62,  63, 
343,  350  ff . ;  esthetic  expression, 
325 

Southern  States,  geographical  variety, 
66,  70 ;  natural  resources,  50 ;  com- 
position of  population,  75 ;  poUti- 
cal  and  social  traits  and  tendencies, 
77,  100;  educational  problems  of, 
46,  224;  race  problem  in,  99  ff., 
119  ff. ;  racial  creed  of,  114  ff.,  226, 
238,  263,  270,  287 

Southern  Workman,  quoted,  135 

Speer,  Judge  Emory,  185 

Standard  of  hving,  194 

State  as  Americanizing  agency,  57, 
251,  296 

"State  of  Frankhn,"  76 

Statistics,  of  negroes  in  United 
States,  132  ff. ;  of  Southern  edu- 
cation; of  comparative  sectional 
progress;  limitations  of,  76 

Stewart,  Professor  J.  S.,  quoted, 
293 


406] 


INDEX 


Stone,  Alfred  Holt,  quoted,  33,  41, 
171,  172,  185,  191,  194 

Straight  University,  New  Or- 
leans, La.,  293,  256 

Student  life,  of  negro,  238,  240  fF. 

Slpreme  Court  of  South  Carolina  on 
labor  contracts,  189 

Talladega    Colf.ege,    Talladega, 

Ala.,  213,  241,  242,  243,  246,  247, 

248,  250,  252 
Tanner,  H.  O.,  the  painter,  164 
Taylor,    Coleridge,    the    composer, 

164 
Teachers,    professional   training   of, 

240  ff.,  247  ff. 
Temperance,  38,  258 
Tennessee,  48,  50,  69,  73,  100,  151, 

216,  257,  304,  310,  339,  341,  347 
Texas,  100,  101,  114,  211 
Thomas,   Professor  W.   I.,   quoted, 

298,  299 
Thomas  Co.  (Ga.),  churches  of,  152 
Thomasville  (Ga.),  negroes  of,  86  ff. 
Thompson,  Holland,  quoted,  68 
Tillinghast,  Joseph  A.,  quoted,  36, 

181 
Tillman,    Senator    Benjamin,    102, 

103 
Tillotson  College,  Austin,  Texas, 

228 
Tougaloo   U>avERSiTT,   Tougaloo, 

Miss.,    139,    161,   241,    247,   251, 

264 
Trade  unions,  144,  226,  289 
Trinity  School,  Athens,  Ala.,  216 


"True  Reformers,"  147 

Turner,   Frederick   J.,   quoted,   67, 

68,  70 
Turpentine  industrj-,  37 
Tuskegee    Institute,    42,    219,    232, 

251,  268,  270,  272,  274,  287,  288, 

289,  290,  291,  294 

Vagrants,  37,  38 

Vardaman,    Governor,    quoted,    ix, 

102 
Vice,  180,  198  ff. 
Virginia,  71,  81,  114,  135,  141,  143, 

146,  147,  153,  209,  211,  304,  310 
Vocational    education,   247  ft'.,   270, 

278,  280 

Ward,  Professor  Lester,  quoted,  384 
Warner,  Charles  F.,  quoted,  284 
Washington,    Principal   Booker   T., 

quoted,   110,   120,   157,   164,   165, 

167,  268  f!.,  271,  286,  291,  372 
West  Virginia,  69,  304,  310 
Whitt,  Rev.  M.  W.,  161 
Wilberforce  University,  151 
Wiley,  Principal,  quoted,  39 
Willcox,  Professor  Walter  F.,   171, 

172,  173,  183 
Williams,  Senator  John  Sharp,  103 
Wilson,  President  Samuel  T.,  307 
Women  in  labor   problem,   77;    in 

education,  277;    progress  of,  277, 

297,  301,  302 
Woodworth,  President  F.  G.,  161 
World's  Work,  quoted,  54,  55,  56, 

147 


[407] 

12487    212 


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